Mobile Suit Gundam SEED AU: Raising the Black Flag
by Deathzealot
Summary: After the Collapse of Heliopolis the Archangel is saved from the Le Creuset Team by an Earth Alliance Taskforce however the resulting meeting with this Taskforce leads the Archangel and its crew on a journey to discover what is really going on behind the scenes of the war. A journey that shall follow a relative third path in the war...
1. Prelude: Divergence

**Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha. **

**Mobile Suit Gundam SEED AU: Raising the Black Flag**

_An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods_

_Aka "Deathzealot"  
>Or, "Deathzealotzero"<em>

_With some ideas and support from, _

_Seth M. Klein  
>Aka "Persistent Dreamer"<em>

**Foreword:**

The basic idea of this story is an interesting one for it basically utterly destroys the canon storyline and plot of the series and basically rebuilds a whole new one around the remains of the original. This is of course completely different from several other Gundam SEED AU Stories which stick with the original plot or storyline and only do a few changes like adding a couple original characters and their mobile suits to the crew of the _Archangel_, others do a few minor changes to the storyline like introducing a whole new group or factions to the story like my own story Angelic Dawn. Or there is the stories which change the canon storyline halfway through their own story. However not very many change the entire storyline of the series, and even then only a handful of those do what I am going to do with this story basically redoing the entire story of the series. Oh! Not the complete story for the events of Heliopolis are still the same, a little, but its everything else after the collapse of the colony that is entirely changed from the original.

That said I bit many are wondering why am I doing this? Well basically I am getting quite tired of all the AU SEED stories out there that are still loyally following the plot of the original series and only adding a few extras here and there. I figured why not go all out and basically rewrite the Gundam SEED story a bit different from the series itself. I know many would be upset by this for it may change the entire feeling of the series if I completely rewrite the story into something completely different. However I am not really completely rewriting the entire story for some events will still happen including: Invasion of Orb (whistles innocently), Saving Lacus in the Debris Belt, Meeting up with Cagalli in the African Community, and several major events of the story will remain in the story. If I did so yes then this story wouldn't be SEED anymore in my humble opinion. That said other events are completely going to be changed like the Artemis Fortress Arc has been change drastically, the Triple Ship Alliance is going to replace entirely, etc. stuff that I and others usually do anyways.

However with all that said I haven't even mentioned the single idea of this entire SEED rewrite like I usually try to mention in my forewords so I don't get flamed in reviews about it later on in the story. For this story this idea is actually that the _Archangel _going rouge and becoming of a sort-of pirate after a series of events early in the series convinces the crew to leave Alliance service. This is of course the reason behind the story's title which I am sure now makes some sense in the scheme of things. I must say though other than that I am not saying anymore and keeping the rest close to my chest no reason to reveal anything further than that.

There also maybe very light crossovers with both Gundam AGE, Gundam Reconguista in G and the Ace Combat game series, however this only light crossovers with machines from G-Reco being used and only a few tidbits taken from Ace Combat while some characters from AGE have been ported. That is it. Therefore Ace Combat Fans I am sorry to say you are going to wait to see what I am porting over from the game story and which game I am using. That said I do admit I do not own any elements from these other properties.

Alright I do believe that is about it for this foreword. It is time to get to the story. So please I hope you all enjoy this new SEED story from yours truly. Ja ne!

William R. Woods  
>- November 1, 2014<p>

**Rating:**

This story is rated M thanks to some some bad language and some scenes that are a bit violent including a scene that shows a very bloody interrogation. Therefore there is reason for this rating. Thank you.

**Prelude: Divergence **

_The Battle of Heliopolis is often said to be the first real turning point of the Bloody Valentine War where the Earth Alliance started to gain ground against the superior forces of the ZAFT organization. It would be the first battle of the war that had not only ZAFT but the Earth Alliance sporting mobile suits. While earlier battles had the Earth Alliance sporting mercenary operated mobile suits fighting for them, this battle was the first to have an official Earth Alliance designed and built mobile suit to take part in the battle. Therefore it was the turning point of the entire war… _

- Taken from The Genetic Issue: The Bloody Valentine Wars

-o-o-o-

_Bridge  
>ZS Vesalius<br>Heliopolis Nearspace  
>Lagrange Three, Earth Sphere<em>

On the bridge of the ZAFT _Nazca _Class Destroyer _Vesalius _the ship's officers were gathered around the tactical map at the back of the bridge getting ready to plan on what they should do next. The ship's commander Rau Le Creuset was frowning as he looked down at the map table before looking around at the others gathered around the map table along with him. On the map a monitor showed the last seconds of the colony as it collapsed making the others frown as they watched as the colony became a large debris field.

"Commander the Council won't look lightly on the destruction of neutral nation's colony like this," the ship's captain Fredrick Ades mentioned a frown as he looked over at this commander seeing him with a small smile on his face.

"Captain Ades how can we call a colony producing new weapons for the Earth Alliance 'neutral' and besides the residents managed to make to the lifeboats therefore we should have no problems," the man replied with a nod of his head before floating away from the map table and over to the shoulder of the ship's sensor officer.

"Can you detect the enemy's new warship?" the Commander asked the man making the younger man stutter a bit before turning to his station to look through the readings the ship's sensors have taken in last few seconds. Captain Ades floated over to his command chair as he shook his head wondering why the man still wanted to go after that ship.

"No sir not through all of this interference from the Colony Collapse," the officer reported a few moments later making the Commander nod in understanding before he looked out the bridge's viewport with a small thoughtful frown on his face.

"You still want to go after them sir. We don't have any more mobile suits," Captain Ades mentioned as he watched the Commander move away from the sensor station with that same thoughtful frown on his face before he turned to look at the Captain at his comment.

"What do you mean Ades we have the four we took from the Alliance. We are done with the data extraction after all. Besides I want to see what shall happened with two machines created by the Earth Forces do battle," the Commander mentioned with a small pleased nod of his head making the Captain blink in surprise at this before sighing for it sounded like something his commander would do after all. However before he could respond the sensor officer called out in surprise drawing the attention of the two officers to him.

"Three Heat Sources Detected! Red 15 by Orange 10," the sensor officer reported making the two officers look at one another in surprise at this before the Captain leaned forward.

"Do we know what they are crewmen?" Captain Ades asked the younger man who was frowning as he entered a few commands into his station before a beep came from the station as a pair of ship schematics appeared on his screen.

"Yes sir, two _Drake _Class Missile Frigates and a single…_Salamis _Class Cruiser Carrier leading them!" the man reported making more than one crewmember hiss in shock at this. For the _Salamis _Class was quite a boogeyman to ZAFT ships thanks to them commonly carrying mercenary operated mobile suits into battle. Not to mention more than one of these crewmen had been onboard the _Laurasia _Class Frigate _Galvani _which had faced off against a _Salamis _Class before during the Battle of Nova several months before. The Commander frowned at this as he looked over the shoulder of the sensor officer while he remaindered the same event and sighed as he leaned back.

"Sir we cannot hope to take on a _Salamis _Class like this with four untested mobile suits and pilots unexperienced in their operation," the Captain mentioned hoping the man wouldn't order them to attack those ships. However he didn't need to worry for the Commander knew that while he could have his forces hound that single new warship and its single mobile suit even with the untested mobile suits, fighting against an Earth Alliance Taskforce that included a _Salamis _Class ships which could carry several mobile suits themselves with veteran pilots who are quite experienced with their machines.

"No worries Captain I understand quite well that we cannot take those ships on without any extra support. Therefore contact the _Gamow _we are leaving and heading back to the Homeland," the Commander mentioned with an internal curse for he really wanted to see performance of these new mobile suits after all but he couldn't just throw away his forces like this. The Captain sighed in relief noticing a few of his crew doing the same at the corner of his eye.

"Yes sir," the Captain replied before relying the order to the communication and helm officers while the Commander floated off towards the back of the bridge once more.

"I shall be in my quarters Captain. Let me know when we have left Lagrange Three," the man mentioned before leaving the bridge behind not waiting for a response. Outside of the bridge's main hatch the Commander could only curse as the two ships of his team stopped before with side thrusters firing turned their bows away from the debris field of the destroyed colony and back towards the distant lights that were the PLANT Colonies of their homeland before their main engines lit off pushing them off away from the debris field. It looked like the Earth Alliance won this round but there would be other chances on going after that new warship after all. However unknown to Commander Le Creuset and his crews this would be quite a long time before they would do so.

-o-End-o-

**Post Chapter Notes**

Well here is the Prelude and while some stuff has changed it is not the promised boulder thrown into the story, which will be the next chapter. That said this chapter basically shows what is happening with the Le Creuset Team and it shall be the only ZAFT POV for a while though I am going to try to do a few ZAFT bits in the story if not in the story then official side stories used as Omakes at the end of some chapters.

There is really nothing here that are special but still an interesting bit that opens the story up. The _Salamis _Class and is background shall be really revealed in the next chapter for it is quite interesting in my opinion. Also the _Galvani _is revealed to be Le Creuset's ship during the early battles of the war during one of the games and its side missions. I don't remember which one but an interesting idea that I thought to include in the story. The _Laurasia _Class page on the Gundam Wiki has interesting image that features the ship in its image gallery.

That said I hope you all enjoyed this small tidbit and I shall get the first chapter up as soon as possible. Thank you for reading this story and I shall see you all in the official first chapter when I post it in a bit.


	2. Phase One: Betrayal

**Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha. **

**Mobile Suit Gundam SEED AU: Raising the Black Flag**

_An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods_

_Aka "Deathzealot"_

_Or, "Deathzealotzero"_

_With some ideas and support from, _

_Seth M. Klein _

_Aka "Persistent Dreamer"_

**Phase One: Betrayal **

_The Earth Alliance's G-Project, an attempt to develop their own mobile suits for use against the superior GINN of ZAFT. It was originally planned by-then Commodore Lewis Halberton of the Atlantic Federation Orbital Fleet in early CE69, but was rejected due to the general believe of several senior commanders of the Allied Sponsor Nations that the superior number of Mobile Armors would win any direct conflict with ZAFT. This would prove to be false during the first months of the war and the plan would be put forth once more, however it was shown that something more was needed. This would be found when someone higher-up in the Atlantic Federation government managed to secure the support of Morgenroete Incorporated and its facilities on the neutral Heliopolis Colony. However the now Rear Admiral Halberton and his superiors didn't want to have everything in one small basket, sort of speak, therefore they would introduce a second phase of the project based at the nearby Eurasian Artemis Space Fortress which became the Joint Earth Alliance Operated Base Artemis soon after. This so-called second phase would receive back-up data from the first phase at Heliopolis via a high-end communication laser link between the two locations. It would be using this data that the second phase would develop the prototype G-Weapon GAT-X101 Rubicon and its pre-production GAT-00D Long Dagger counterpart a month before the official G-Project prototypes where rolled-out. This would be very helpful for the Earth Alliance for when ZAFT's elite Le Creuset Team found about the project and attacked Heliopolis Colony much of the data from the G-Project was safely stored at Artemis allowing the Earth Alliance to start developing their own mass produced mobile suits as soon as possible… _

- _Taken from __The Mobile Suit: An Historical Overview _

**-o-o-o-**

_Bridge  
>AFS Archangel<br>Heliopolis Nearspace  
>Lagrange Three, Earth Sphere<em>

On the bridge of the large assault ship known as the _Archangel _the gathered crew could only look on in shock and horror at the expanding field of debris which had once been a peaceful space colony only moments before. The Colony Heliopolis was not the first nor the last colony to be destroyed or damaged during the brutal dance of war over the last several months but it still shocking for this colony did support their own Earth Alliance nor ZAFT of the PLANT Colonies it was a neutral colony wanting to stay out of the brutal war. However thanks to some powerful people in both the Earth Alliance, and the colony's supporting country the United Emirate of Orb it was the site of the Earth Alliance program to development their own mobile suits, equal to those in use of the ZAFT organization. This program brought ZAFT to the colony who did not want to give up their advantage against the Alliance and attacked the colony. The resulting battle saw the colony now this expanding field of debris with only the large resource asteroid that once anchored one end of the destroyed colony still intact.

The various crew manning the stations on the bridge of the _Archangel _could only stare in shock at the view, while the three remaining senior officers of the ship floated over to the front of the bridge as they stared in shock and horror themselves at the new debris field that had replaced the colony. One of the officers a blond-haired man shook his head at the sight before turning away with a soft curse.

"It was so fragile," the ship's new captain, one Lieutenant Murrue Ramius, managed to say softly making a few across the bridge nod in agreement while the man, Lieutenant Mu La Flagga, took a breath before turning to the third officer a black haired woman who had come out from the small CIC located just below the bridge.

"What about the Kid? Did you manage to get in contact with him Ensign?" the man asked the woman who had been looking in total shock at now dead colony quickly tore her eyes from the view to look over at him knowing by Kid the Lieutenant meant Kira Yamato the current pilot of the prototype G-Weapon Mobile Suit Strike.

"Yes Sir, Mister Yamato is now on his way back to the ship though he managed to get a bit far from the ship in the Collapse therefore it may take a few minutes," she reported making Lieutenant La Flagga nod in relief. He then turned his attention back to the Captain but was distracted like the rest of the bridge crew when the sensor station started to beep harshly. The crew member at that station looked down at his station in confusion before blinking in surprise and looking back up at the officers who were looking at him in confusion.

"We are detecting two large heat sources which are now moving away from the colony's Nearspace and on a course back to Lagrange Five. It looks like ZAFT is retreating," the man reported making the officers look at each in shock before Lieutenant La Flagga pushed himself over to the sensor station to look down at the readings himself.

"This isn't like Le Creuset for he is like dog with a meaty bone and he won't quit like this," the man mentioned with a frown eying the readings seeing that the younger man was quite correct two large heat sources where now heading away from the remains of the colony and a course back towards their homeland.

"Well if I remember right Lieutenant we did take out all of their GINNs between that first battle and the battle inside the colony therefore wouldn't he retreat since he had little combat power left after all," the black haired officer Ensign Natarle Badgiruel mentioned with a shrug of her shoulders making the Lieutenant shake his head with a deep frown on his face.

"No he still had the four G-Weapons he took from us along with some good pilots for them therefore I don't know why he left like this," the man replied as he eyed the sensor display before turning to stare out the viewport before shaking his head.

"The only thing I can think of is that something most likely spooked him but what is the question," he stated with confused look on his face before turning to look at the younger enlisted man seated at the sensor station.

"Chief is there anything else out there which could have spooked him like that?" he asked the man who only frowned before leaning forward and started going through different readings.

"Well our sensors are still kind of blocked by the soup from the collapse of colony but from what I see there is nothing..." the man mentioned with a shake of his head making the officers look at each other in some confusion before the sensor officer cried out in shock as another harsh beeping started to come from his station, "Wait! There are three more heat sources fast approaching us...Orange Seven! Jesus! They are right on top of us."

The three officers look at each other in shock before whipping around to look through the main viewport just in time to see three forms pushing their way through the debris and into the almost clear space that surrounded the large assault ship. The officers relaxed slightly when they saw two of the ships having the familiar forms of _Drake _Class Missile Frigates thought two of the officers were confused at the appearance of the third and lead ship of the small taskforce. It was clearly related to the _Jutland _Class Cruiser which had been the mainstay of the Eurasian Federation Space Fleet for a few years before the start of the war however what was confusing for the majority of the _Jutland _Class ships that had been taken into the overall larger Earth Alliance Fleet were destroyed at the Battle of Nova. However Lieutenant La Flagga did recognize the design and let out an impressed whistle attracting the attention of the two female officers at his side.

"That is a _Salamis _Class Cruiser Carrier heavily based on the Eurasian _Jutland _Class Cruiser which had been originally designed to carry a large number of mobile armors to counter the Eurasians going for the all-gun space navy with paltry support for mobile armors unlike the Atlantic Federation. However by the time I saw one at the Battle of Nova it was carrying six mercenary operated mobile suits. From what I found out after Nova is that while they were originally designed to carry mobile armors, the Earth Alliance converted it mid-design to carry, as well as support, mobile suits using data from early development of this ship if I am not mistaken. Therefore that does kind of explains why Le Creuset ran for he took part in the Battle of Nova and three of those Mercs almost killed him along with heavily damaging his ship," La Flagga explained with a nod of his head making the two other officers relax fully beside him. A beeping soon attracted their attention over to the station that mirrored the sensor station behind the captain's chair. The enlisted man at that station looked up at their curious looks with a small smile on his face.

"Ma'am I am getting a communication from the lead ship which is identified as the AFS _Mycale_. Do you want me to put it up?" the man asked making the officers look at one another before Captain Ramius shook her head with a smile and turned to look at the communication officer.

"Yes Petty Officer put it up," she ordered waving a hand at the screen mounted above the bridge's main viewport. The man only nodded before entering a few commands into his station which was followed by the screen flashing to show the seated figure of an Earth Alliance officer. One that both Captain Ramius and Ensign Badgiruel knew well making the two look at each other in shock before turning their attention back to the man.

"Captain Koopland sir, this is a surprise. I didn't know you were transferred from the _Montgomery_," Captain Ramius managed to say with a salute which the man returned with a small smile on his face as he eyed the three of them before nodding.

"Lieutenant Ramius, Ensign Badgiruel it is nice to see the two of you again but yes I ordered to take command of the _Mycale _about a week ago leaving the _Montgomery _in the hands of Commander Reed. Now if you please can you tell me what happened here Lieutenant Ramius?" the man asked with a hard edge to his voice making Captain Ramius sigh before quickly explaining to the man what had happened in the last six hours. The man frowned deeply at this before leaning back in his seat and quietly speaking to someone off screen for a moment before turning back to look at the camera.

"Very well Lieutenant, I am sorry to say I am going to have to take you and what remains of your crew into custody including the young man you have piloting the Strike G-Weapon. I shall send over a Marine Detachment and a prize crew lead by Lieutenant Commander Andrews in a bit," the man said shocking the three officers and their bridge crew. Lieutenant La Flagga angrily gritted his teeth before looking at the two shocked women at the corner of his eye before looking up at the screen.

"On what charges sir?!" he asked with an angry glare on his face. The man blinked at this before turning his attention to La Flagga.

"Lieutenant La Flagga I presume?" the man asked with a frown making La Flagga blink before nodding in answer before the Captain nodded himself before continuing on answering the pilot's question, "The Charges? Well that is easy, first you allowed ZAFT to find out about the G-Project, and while Captain Ray did back up his data to the secondary site at Artemis we still lost four of the G-Weapons. Secondly you allowed a Civilian, a Coordinator at that, into the cockpit of the classified Strike G-Weapon. Third you allowed him to pilot the said G-Weapon and while his performance against the enemy GINNs are remarkable he shouldn't have been in the cockpit in the first place. Lastly you let more civilians, along with employees of a non-Alliance based organization, to embark on the also classified _Archangel_. Does that answer your question Lieutenant?" the Captain explained making Captain Ramius start to grit her own teeth in anger at this while looking over at the shocked face of Ensign Badgiruel. Those charges were bogus considering it is not their fault that ZAFT found out about the G-Project, nor was it their fault for ZAFT capturing four of the G-Weapons. Not to mention if they hadn't let Kira pilot the Strike all of them would be dead right now along with the refugees they took onboard.

"I am quite disappointed in you Ensign Badgiruel for while I could expect all of that from Lieutenant Ramius I don't believe that you could have gone along with all that in the first place," the Captain mentioned with a frown staring at the young Ensign who shook her head with an angry look on her face staring up at the man who had been one of the handful of her superior officers she had actually respected. However before she can say anything in response she noticed some commotion from the Captain's side of the communication link which was soon somewhat repeated by the one of the crewmembers in the CIC behind the three officers make them look over in confusion.

"...What the hell does that boy think he is doing?" the Captain angrily asked at someone off screen while Natarle looked over at the other officers before turning to look down into the CIC.

"What is going on Petty Officer?" she asked one of the two men manning the CIC who only looked up with a sigh before turning back to his console for a moment.

"It's the Strike Ma'am. I am putting it up on the monitor alongside the Captain's communication screen," the man replied making Natarle frown before looking back up at the screen just in time to see a smaller screen appear on the monitor at one corner of the Captain's communication screen. It showed the Strike approaching what looked to be a damaged Heliopolis Lifepod along with another he already carried under one arm of mobile suit. This made all three officers frown before turning their attention back to Captain Koopland who looked all out angry at what is going on.

"...I do not care get him on my screen now Ensign!" the man bellowed off screen before the smaller screen showing the Strike blinked once before showing its own communication screen with the face of Kira Yamato pilot of the Strike who blinked in some surprise at the camera before shaking his head with some annoyance clear on his face.

"Kira Yamato I am Captain Koopland of the AFS _Mycale _I need you to cease and desist with your current rescue operation for we are not here for Search and Rescue. Ships are already in route to do so," the Captain ordered quite calmer then he was before making Natarle sigh and rubbing her forehead already knowing that won't work with the young man while Mu La Flagga just grinned.

"That may be true sir but both of these life pods are damaged with this one more seriously than the other therefore I am retrieving this pod before returning to the _Archangel_," Kira calmly replied as he turned his attention back to his piloting while the Captain's face went red in anger before he leaned forward into his pickup with an angry snarl.

"I don't care that they are damaged I need you onboard the _Archangel _now so I can take you and your friends into custody!" the man angrily declared making Kira blink at him in shock before he shook his head and cut off the communication feed making the window revert back to the image showing the Strike now reaching for the Life Pod. Captain Koopland snarled in anger once more and all three officers looked worried for the man now looked downright furious and he leaned outside the pickup field and snarled an order to someone off screen making them all frown. Suddenly the sensor officer cried out in shock as his station started to beep harshly.

"Ma'am! The _Mycale _is powering up one of its turrets and aiming for the Strike!" the man reported making the trio of officers look over at him in shock and could only say a single collective "What" in response before the screen went white as the _Mycale _fired one of its small secondary beam cannons at the small pod the Strike now had a hold of with one hand. The green beam from the _Mycale _sliced through the Lifepod like it was nothing, barely missing the Strike as it exited. However the Strike was not totally scot free as the unarmored Lifepod exploded shredding the mobile suit's hand and peppering the mobile suit with debris which sent the machine spiraling away, while the other life pod was sent into a spiral as well almost hitting a piece of debris before it managed to come to a stop due to the one of pod's damaged thrusters firing correcting its spin before it sputtered and died. The Strike meanwhile steadied itself grabbing a piece of debris and firing off its own thrusters to steady itself. However no one else noticed this as all eyes were on the growing cloud of debris that once been a life pod and many innocent civilians who perished in the explosion.

**-o-o-o-**

_Cockpit  
>Strike G-Weapon<br>Heliopolis Nearspace  
>Lagrange Three, Earth Sphere<em>

In the cockpit of the Strike its pilot, Kira Yamato could only stare in shock at his cockpits main screen and the cloud of tiny pieces of debris that once been a Space Colony's Lifeboat which carried eighty civilians, people similar to him if he hadn't been pushed into the Strike several hours before. Unlike the other lifeboat that he had retrieved which had its communication system damaged along with its thrusters that one actually had communications and therefore he had been talking to someone on that pod only seconds before it was destroyed, a someone that he actually knew. The man Davis Koenig had been the father of his best friend Tolle and a volunteer emergency worker therefore he had been reasonable for everyone on that lifeboat. He also knew thanks to the man that several others including his own father had managed to make it to that pod. Now all of them where dead thanks to a ship he had thought to be an ally.

Kira could only sob in anguish at this as his shaking hands started to rub his face as he started to cry both in sorrow and anger at what had happened. He never got along with his father all that much but lately it seemed like the two of them were actually on the way to having a better relationship in the end. Therefore it felt like a piece of his heart had been ripped out of his chest. Then there was the news that several of the others onboard that pod he knew as well which made things even worse off. As he sat there he could only stare at his hands as tears started to float around his head in zero-gravity.

Suddenly a beeping from his controls made him look up in confusion at the screens that surrounded his cockpit chair wondering what is going on before he noticed the screen zooming on the large ship at the center which had destroyed the life pod moments before. The window zoomed all of the way to one of the hanger pods that ran alongside the ship and that the door to the pod was opening to launch something. He also noticed that two of its turrets had lined up on the _Archangel_, a ship that still carried his friends onboard.

His eyes widened at this before they narrowed in anger and he didn't even notice as a purple colored seed spin in his vision before exploding in harsh light. He suddenly snarled in anger and grabbed the controls. Outside the cockpit the Strike's intact hand rose up and grabbed the large sword that was stored over one shoulder before the machine's thrusters flared pushing the mobile suit towards the three ships facing off against the _Archangel _and he promised not a single of his friends was going to die here. Not if he could help it.

**-o-o-o-**

_Bridge  
>AFS Archangel<br>Heliopolis Nearspace  
>Lagrange Three, Earth Sphere<em>

Onboard the _Archangel _the three senior officers, the bridge crew and everyone watching the exterior video feeds piped throughout the ship could only stare in shock and horror at what happened in the last few seconds. An Atlantic Federation warship had fired on innocent civilians and killed them in cold blood. The majority of them knew that the regular Colony Lifeboat like that one destroyed could carry up to eighty people which was only the drop in the bucket compared to other tragedies like the Bloody Valentine Disaster, HS_ Mercy_ Incident during the Battle of Nova, and a couple other similar incidents but still that was eighty innocent people dead right in front of their eyes. That didn't included anyone that were killed when the other life boat held by the Strike was sent flying along with the mobile suit.

On the screen the figure of Captain Koopland stared off-camera for a moment, most likely through his own forward viewport before he shook his head with a frown before turned his attention away from the viewport and looked to the side towards someone off-screen. Both Mu La Flagga and Natarle Badgiruel had shook of their shock and was now staring up at the screen with anger clearly displayed on their faces. However before the man started to speak Lieutenant La Flagga shot a look to the woman next to him who only nodded before starting towards the CIC snagging her wayward headset along the way.

"Well that takes care of that. Operator have our ready team launch to retrieve the Strike and have another team get ready to launch behind them," the man ordered which the camera's microphone managed to pick up making Lieutenant La Flagga look up with an interested look for that sounded like the _Mycale _was carrying mobile suits but what is the question. His orders done he turned his attention back to the pickup and leaned forward with a frown.

"Now Lieutenant Ramius are you going to have your crew stand down or am I going to have to disable your ship and tow it back to Artemis?" the man ordered staring down the camera at the two officers not evening caring about the anger and disgust displayed on the face Lieutenant La Flagga, and the growing anger displayed on the face of Lieutenant Ramius.

"CAPTAIN! You just killed innocent civilians and that is the only thing you can say!" she finally said exploding with anger making the Captain reel back in shock before his face went in red anger himself and he leaned back down towards the camera with a snarl.

"Yes Lieutenant for they don't really matter for I did warn that young man, and even then I was trying to target the Strike to disable it not the Lifeboat. This ship and crew are still new therefore there should be no surprise that there is still some bugs that need to be worked out. Besides _Lieutenant _I don't have to answer to you about this," he replied making Murrue only shake her head in shock at this before the man raised a hand to signal something and everyone on the bridge gasped as they saw two of the main guns on the _Mycale _swivel around to target the _Archangel _with one actually pointing up at the bridge of the ship where they currently are standing. While just as this happened the doors to the ship's hangar pods started to open showing that two unknown mobile suits were standing there ready to be launched making Mu narrow his eyes in some understanding. The mobile suit looked quite similar to the Strike itself or any of the other X100 Series G-Weapons but sporting smaller shoulders and what looked to be a pair of beam sabers on the waist. They also carried a shield and rifle similar to what the Strike carries in its Aile Form. Those two mobile suits were clearly based on the G-Weapons therefore they would have to be in development for the past few months alongside the G-Weapons themselves which explains the G-Project Second Phase did more than just backing up data from the Primary Phase at Heliopolis. The Lieutenant could only frown at this before turning his attention back to the communication from Captain Koopland.

"Now Lieutenant I shall ask again are you going to stand down or am I going to have to get a little rough and disable your ship directly," the man mentioned making the two officers glare up at the screen however before they could do anything Captain Koopland was distracted by a shout from off-screen.

"Captain! The Strike is heading directly for us! I think it is going to attack us!" the officer shouted making Captain Koopland looking off camera in some confusion as the two unknown mobile suits launched from the ship already heading for the Strike rushing towards the _Mycale_.

"What! You mean that hit didn't disable it?" Captain Koopland shouted in shock before noticing the still open communication channel and sliced his hand across his throat in the universal gesture for cutting off a communication. The channel remained open just enough for the Captain to turn and start shouting off orders. Already another pair of the unknown mobile suits were launched from still opened hangar doors. Meanwhile the _Archangel _crew could only watch the next few minutes in shock as the Strike started its attack.

First the Strike raised its shield towards the lead mobile suit before firing off the attached "Panzer Eisen" rocket anchor which slammed into the lead mobile suit drawing it into a shot from its partner mobile suit destroying it. The other mobile suit paused in shock before a swipe from the large "Schwert Gewehr" sword held in the Strike's remaining intact hand cutting the other mobile suit in half as the Strike flashed past destroying it as well. The fresh pair of mobile suits soon found themselves the G-weapons next victims and soon were destroyed as well similarly to the second mobile suit. The three ships then started to fire their close in weapons as the Strike rapidly closed in on the _Mycale _but the Strike is equipped with Phase Shift Armor and the CIWS rounds just harmlessly bounced off the mobile suit like nothing. A moment later saw found the Strike right up in front of the bridge of the _Mycale _and with a single swipe of the large blade cut straight through the bridge window and into the bridge itself destroying it. The Strike then turned and fired off its Rocket Anchor at one of the flanking _Drake _Class Frigates destroying its own bridge with a large crunch of metal. The wire attached to the anchor was cleanly sliced through by the sword freeing the Strike from pulling in the now damaged form of the anchor.

The Strike then turned and boosted past the smoldering remains of the _Mycale_'s bridge before stabbing the blade into the hull of the _Mycale_ slicing as he went hitting the ship's reactor a moment later. The Strike then rushed towards the remaining intact _Drake _Class as the _Mycale _exploded behind it sending its intact portside hangar pod spiraling off. The last _Drake _tried to move away from the demon given form in the Strike while firing its CIWS guns almost pitifully in response at the rushing mobile suit but like before to no avail and with two clean slices from the large anti-ship sword the _Drake _was now a smoldering wreck with one side of its hull completely open to space while the ship's small bridge tower floated free from the ship. Then with one last move the Strike sent its anti-ship sword spinning towards the first _Drake _as it tried to retreat from the battle piercing through the Frigate's hull like butter destroying it in a large explosion as its own reactor went up. The three ships of the _Mycale _Taskforce where now a large cloud of debris and the flaming wreck of one of the _Drake _Class ships. The Strike then stopped moving as its armor lost color as it lost power for its Phase Shift Armor. This battle was now over.

**-o-End-o-**

**Post Chapter Notes**

Well that was a large boulder into the waters of the canon story wasn't it? Well I did warn you all in the foreword that this was going to happen. You still here? Good. That isn't going to the last of the so-called boulders and yes you can expect the ripples from this to continue all the way to the end of the story.

That said this chapter covers the major break of the _Archangel _from the Earth Alliance similar to the Battle of JOSH-A and Cyclops did in canon. This time I had Kira doing the "break-up" but you can expect that the majority of the crew of the _Archangel _agreeing with him, especially since I have much of the discussion between the officers and Koopland piped through the entire ship so everyone heard everything. And many also saw the destruction of the Lifepod on the screens as well.

As for the second Lifepod seen here and destroyed by the _Mycale _in this chapter I figured it would be a good way to help the break along. Not to mention having Haruma Yamato onboard the Pod along with Tolle's Dad and several other people Kira knows. This is of course is to force Kira into his SEED mode a bit early, but allowing Kira to slaughter the _Mycale _and its taskforce far easier then he would normally at this point of the story. Also I made the Strike go Phase Shift Down at the end of this chapter thanks to the power issue with the Strike since it already fought a battle with Miguel earlier therefore I don't think it would have the power to do another full on battle. However with the Strike being equipped with the Sword Pack which doesn't have a Beam Rifle to help drain its battery faster would make its power last a bit longer.

The Mobile Suits mentioned in this chapter _are _canon unlike some others I am going to introduce into the story in the near future. However they were only introduced a bit earlier in this story then the official story thanks to the G-Project having its Second Phase based at Artemis which allowed the Earth Alliance to deploy mobile suits earlier. This is the first time they are officially used by the Alliance having to rely on mercenary piloted mobile suits before this and the Alliance will use them in several other places besides here. So you can expect them to appear elsewhere in the story before the general introduction of other mobile suits.

The _Jutland _Class mentioned here is actually based on the _Salamis _Class cruiser from UC Gundam. Here it is a Eurasian designed ship to counter the Atlantic Federation designed _Nelson _Class. However thanks to the Eurasian Space Forces going with an "all-gun" fleet instead of focusing on mobile armors kind of gave them a big kick in the pants during a few intense skirmishes that happened before the start of the war between the Atlantic Federation and Eurasian Federation. Not to mention the _Jutland _Class ships taken into the larger Earth Alliance fleet suffered horribly against ZAFT ships and mobile suits, both during the CE69 Blockade and the space battles of the Bloody Valentine War. The _Salamis _Class mentioned here was a project that was started by the Eurasians to counter this but was a bit too late and was gobbled up by the Earth Alliance itself. Therefore the _Nelson _Class of the MSV-R becomes the _Salamis _Class in this story.

Before I close these notes I like to mention that there were a few different scenes I had in mind for the battle between the _Archangel _and the _Mycale _Taskforce. A couple had the _Archangel _itself being the one reasonable for the destruction of the _Mycale _and its taskforce. With one of them having the _Mycale _and escorts firing on the ship but to no effect thanks to the laminated armor and the ship returning fire which destroys the other ships. Another almost mirrored the Artemis scene in the series where the ship is taken over by an opposing force before the crew managed to somehow get control of the ship back before destroying the escorting _Mycale_. The last one had the taskforce destroying life pods as they went for some stupid reason of leaving no witnesses or something like that. That said I like this scene better for Kira is not part of the Atlantic Federation military therefore had no real hesitation with going after allied ships like that. Not to mention it shows the SEED mode a little earlier. However I do admit it was kind of hard trying to make things interesting with the Strike only sporting the Sword Pack. I do admit I almost used an author hand-wave to have the Strike equipped with the Aile but I did not for it would have been lazy. That said I like to mention I did write-out a few of these mentioned scenes and may have them showing up as omakes in later chapters.

Alright all of that said folks that is it for this chapter and I shall see you in the next chapter which shall be next Thursday sometime. And no it is not a coincidence that this is the same day that the newest episode of G-Reco comes out. Till then Ja ne!


	3. Phase Two: Aftermath

**Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha. **

**Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Raising the Black Flag**

_An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods_

_Aka "Deathzealot"_

_Or, "Deathzealotzero"_

_With some ideas and support from, _

_Seth M. Klein _

_Aka "Persistent Dreamer"_

**Phase Two: The Aftermath **

_Those first days after the event we later started calling the Betrayal found many of the ex-Earth Alliance types onboard the ship both shocked and somewhat depressed at what our fellow members of the Earth Alliance military have done. I personally was sickened and angry at what happened but honestly I wasn't surprised as the others for I had already seen some of the stuff the Earth Alliance can do to not only our enemies but to our own people. I learned that at the Battle of Endymion and a handful of later minor events including HS Mercy Incident which saw Alliance forces firing onto the Hospital Ship Mercy which was picking up both ZAFT and Alliance wounded during the Battle of Nova. However the Betrayal eclipsed it all in my mind for an Alliance force to willingly fire on innocent civilians was something I could not stand for therefore it would come to no surprise that was the first to throw off my uniform coat in disgust..._

_- Taken from Personal Journal of Mu La Flagga_

**-o-o-o-**

_Bridge  
>AFS Archangel<br>Heliopolis Nearspace  
>Lagrange Three, Earth Sphere<em>

On the bridge of the _Archangel _everyone picked up their jaws from the floor and turned to look at Captain Ramius who sighed before collapsing into the ship's command chair before turning to look at Lieutenant La Flagga who was just shaking his head as he looked over the remains of the three ship before turning his own attention to the Captain.

"What should we do Lieutenant La Flagga for the Alliance will not look past this disaster?" she asked with a frown making the older Lieutenant sigh before looking around at the bridge crew who were all looking at the two of them.

"Well right now I think we should just lay low for now and do some serious thinking on what we should do now," he replied to the woman who closed her eyes with a sigh and rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers. Lieutenant La Flagga smiled bitterly at this before turning his attention to the bridge's viewport. Suddenly Murrue looked up at him with an unhappy yet saddened look on her face.

"What about the crew Lieutenant? Some of them have families...careers... How are we going to tell them about this," she mentioned looking over a the still wide-eyed looks from the bridge crewmen making Mu sigh before turning to her but was stopped when the door to the bridge slid open to let in Chief Petty Officer Kojiro Murdoch, the ship's gruff senior surviving non-commissioned officer and head of the hangar crew, who floated over to the captain with scowl on his face.

"Well ma'am it looks like the rest of the crew are downright pissed about this! Heck! I may have a mutiny from those Morgenroete engineers helping my guys out in the hanger," the man reported with a shake of his head making the Captain look over at him in shock.

"What do you mean Chief? How do they know about what had happened?" she asked in confusion and was surprised by the bark of laughter from the man as he floated over to the enlisted officer sitting at the communication station and slapped the man on the back.

"Well it appears that Chandra here piped the entire conversation throughout the ship with the visuals as well for those of us that had screens. Everyone onboard either heard it or saw it happen live ma'am," the man mentioned with a large grin on his face making the others on the bridge look over at the communication officer, one Petty Officer 2nd Class Dalida Lolaha Chandra II, who blinked at this before looking down at his controls for a moment and adjusted his glasses in nerveless tension before sighing realizing what he had done before turning to the officers with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well that takes care of that Captain," Lieutenant La Flagga mentioned with a laugh of his own before turning give a thumbs up to Petty Officer Chandra who only adjusted his glasses once more with a small chuckle.

"Alright then Chief how is the crew doing with all of this?" the Captain asked with a little tremor in her voice making the rugged face of the Chief Petty Officer soften slightly before sighing and leaning against the communication station eying the Captain.

"Like I said they are pissed but actually horrified for many of the Earth Alliance crew they had heard about the various incidents that has happened were Alliance personal have fired on civilian targets or even other Alliance targets. But they all thought it was rumors or were accidents and this incident has proved that those earlier incidents were not rumors after all. However I have to say that I am not worried about the crew all that much, the Kids however are another matter especially that one," the man mentioned calmly making the others around the bridge listening to nod in agreement before all of them as one turned to look out the viewport at the still silent figure of the Strike which stood there in the middle of the debris cloud it had created. Captain Ramius gasped at this before turning to look down at the CIC to see Ensign Badgiruel looking up at her.

"Ensign, Can you contact Kira?" she asked the other woman who only smiled slightly at this before nodding her head.

"I already managed to get in contact with him ma'am, I admit it did take a bit but I managed it. Should I put him up on the screen?" the Ensign said making Murrue blink at his before shaking her head with a brief chuckle and nodding down at the woman in answer. The Ensign didn't reply and quickly enter a short command into her station bringing up the face of Kira Yamato onto the communication screen where Captain Koopland's face had been only minutes before. Murrue looked up at him noticing the haggard look in the young man's eyes and the tear tracks running down his face making her sigh sadly at this hating herself for having in that cockpit in the first place.

"Are you alright Kira?" she gently asked making him sigh and leaned heavily against the pilot chair.

"Not really Miss Murrue. I really don't know what had come over me. I remember staring in shock at the destroyed Lifepod which I had been in communication with only moments before and then getting angry over the deaths of the people on that lifeboat including my own father and a few others I knew, then I was watching that final ship explode," he explained heavily making more than one person on the bridge inhale in shock at his mentioning that his father had been onboard the Lifeboat before it was destroyed. Lieutenant La Flagga cursed softy under his breath while Murrue's only sighed sadly at this.

"Are you sure Kira that your father was onboard?" she asked leaning forward making Kira blink at this before taking a breath and shaking his head.

"I'm sure for I was talking to Davis Koenig, father to my friend Tolle and he said my father was onboard along with a few others I knew. I did remember you mentioning the Strike was top secret therefore I said I was piloting a Mistral Pod," he said in return making Murrue flinch at the beginning of this comment before blinking at the last half of the comment. Murdoch laughed softly at that one making a few others join him for it was kind of absurd in the scheme of things.

"Alright then are you coming back onboard now?" she asked him and was surprised in turn by the angry frown that appeared on his face at her question.

"No I am going to see about finding that other Lifeboat I found before returning," he mentioned making Murrue nod in agreement for she was kind of worried for that one as well.

"Alright then Kira but do you have the power and fuel for that? Since your Phase Shift is down which means you are running a bit short of power now, and with that battle your fuel should be heading there as well?" she mentioned with a frown while Murdoch nodded in agreement with her eying the still motionless Strike. Kira only blinked at this in surprise before looking down to study his read outs for whispering under his breath for a few moments before nodding.

"I have enough to find that Lifeboat Miss Murrue and I shall return to the ship with it to get resupplied and repaired," he mentioned after a moment making the young Captain nod in agreement before exchanging a look with Lieutenant La Flagga.

"Okay, but hurry back for we are going to see about finding anymore of the damaged lifeboats I do not want to leave them behind for anyone else to do something with them. We should also try to search for any survivors from the _Mycale _Taskforce as well," Murrue mentioned making Kira nod with a small smile on his face while others on the bridge could only nod in agreement with her.

"Understood Miss Murrue, be back in a bit," he replied with a nod before cutting off the communication which drew the attention of the crew to the Strike itself has it slowly moved off using small puffs of its thrusters to save fuel. The Captain then turned her attention to the rest of the crew who all watching as the Strike pulled away from the ship to search for that wayward Lifeboat.

"Alright everyone back to work I do not want to get jumped by one of those ZAFT ships if they doubled back for some reason or another," she ordered jolting the crew who all turned back to their to their stations while a raised hand from the Captain stopped Murdoch from leaving to head back to the hanger.

"Speaking of sending out parties to search for survivors and any damaged Lifeboats. I was wondering if we have crews to man our Mistral Pods?" she asked the Chief who blink at this before looking thoughtful for a few moments before shaking his head.

"I only have enough properly trained personnel to man two to three of the Mistrals Ma'am," the Chief replied with a frown on his face making the Captain sigh at this before Lieutenant La Flagga cut in with a frown of his own.

"What about the Morgenroete personal we took on Chief?" the man asked making the chief blink at this before nodding and turning back to look at the Captain.

"That should have us manning maybe four or five Mistrals then Ma'am," the burly Chief replied to the Captain who only smiled at this pleased.

"Alright then Chief get to it," she ordered the man who only saluted before turned to leave before stopping and turning back to the Captain who look over at him in some confusion.

"Ma'am that said I think we can also see about searching the colony debris for any supplies we can find for we do have plenty of time before any rescue ships arrive," the Chief mentioned making the Captain to once more blink in surprise before nodding.

"Can you do that plus repairing both the Strike and the Lieutenant's Zero? For I don't want to be a sitting duck if we anyone else appears," she asked making the Chief Petty Officer blink at this before once more thinking about it for a few moments before nodding.

"Yeah it would be tight but we can do it ma'am," the man answered making Captain Ramius nod at this before looking over Lieutenant La Flagga who look also nodded at this.

"I shall head down there in a bit Chief to help out. I need to do a few things up here first," the Zero pilot mentioned making the Chief only nod at this before saluting once more and turning to exit the bridge. That done the Captain leaned to the side to look down at the CIC.

"Ensign can you bring up the civilian emergency channel let's see how many damaged lifeboats there are out there," she ordered the other woman who only nodded at this before leaning forward at the station and started to entering commands. That done the two other officers started to discuss a few things before Lieutenant La Flagga left the bridge to help out the mechanics to repair his Zero.

-o-o-o-

_Captain's Office  
>Rogue Ship Archangel <em>  
><em>Lagrange Three Area <em>  
><em>Two Hours Later <em>

A little over two hours later found the three senior officers, and Chief Murdoch meeting in the Captain's office attached to the Captain's Quarters. The last two hours had been quite interesting in that they had recovered four damaged Heliopolis Lifepods including the one that had been damaged earlier by the _Mycale _firing and destroying another of the Lifepods. However what was really interesting was that Mu La Flagga and Ensign Badgiruel had gotten rid of their uniform jackets leaving them both in slacks and the uniform undershirt. While Chief Murdoch still wore the mechanic jumpsuit he had always worn but it was telling in that any patches had been removed.

"Alright first of all how many people did we recover from those damaged pods?" the Captain asked after shaking her head at the other two officers out of uniform, but she didn't say anything for it was something she agreed with therefore was wearing a Morgenroete jumpsuit like the one she had worn earlier when on the Colony.

"Well ma'am, that is about three hundred fifty or so people but combine that with the people we already brought on board earlier that gives us around three hundred seventy or so people onboard. I have the majority of them settled in the main cargo bay for now, but I did talk to them and mention that we are going to take them somewhere where they can hopefully be unloaded and transferred to shuttles to take them to the Orb Mainland," Ensign Badergeril mentioned with a frown making Murrue sigh knowing that it may have been over four hundred if that first shelter hadn't been destroyed by the _Mycale. _

"Alright then that is good we did manage to recover them. Now what about supplies did we manage to get any from that _Drake _or the debris of the colony?" she asked turning to look over at Lieutenant La Flagga and the Chief who had been reasonable for that search.

"Well from the _Drake _we got some needed food supplies and such but we found no survivors onboard. They all had been unsuited and weren't even at battle-stations therefore none of the compartments had been sealed," the Chief replied with a sigh making the three officer flinch both in pain at that but at the same time wondering why they hadn't been suited readied for combat when they arrived in the Lagrange Three Area. They most likely knew that there was ZAFT forces around therefore they should have been prepared for combat but it looks like they a bit overconfident.

"What about any supplies from the colony debris?" the Captain asked after several moments of silence for the lost Alliance personal, like they used to be. The Chief only grunted at this before shaking his head a bit.

"Not much for the debris already has started to expand, and we didn't really want to check out the Benben Resource Asteroid for it is a bit far. However the only good thing we managed was to find a damaged storage container that had a spare Aile Flight Pack in it though it is a bit damaged," the Chief reported making the Captain frown at this knowing the Benben Resource Asteroid was the asteroid that had been attached to other end of the colony. It had made it intact through the collapse of the colony but if she remembered right there wasn't really anything in there anyways.

"What about that intact flight pod from the _Mycale _that you guys found?" She asked after a moment of thought. The Chief suddenly grinned at that while exchanging a look with the Lieutenant making the man chuckle lightly before getting up from leaning against the wall and stood in front of the Captain's desk.

"Well we had a bit more luck there Captain. Basically we found a trashed mobile suit that was the same type the _Mycale _had launched earlier. It is pretty damaged from the pod hitting one of the larger pieces of debris after it was sent flying by the destruction of the ship. However what is more important find is that we figured out how they managed to get a Natural-Use Mobile Suit working like those machines where," the man reported making the Captain blink at this in surprise before narrowing her eyes for she had been wondering how they had managed to get around the OS Problem that all of the G-Project Mobile Suits had.

"Well Lieutenant?" she asked with a sigh making the man grin slightly before leaning slightly and setting down a data disk on the desk of the Captain who eyed it with a frown.

"Basically ma'am using data from the development of the G-Project and their own testing to develop a ready-use Natural Operating System," the man replied making the Captain look up at him in surprise before looking over at Ensign Baderguil who look downright shocked at this revelation before shaking her own head. A Natural-Use Operating System had been one of the major problems with the G-Weapons and several ways of had been tried to get around this including a complete AI-Driven Operating System and a few other ways were tried. The results of those various different testing program were used as a basis of an operating system that had been installed on the G-Weapons. It was hoped that those programs would be used as a base for a true Natural-Use Operating System.

"I cannot believe they managed to make their own Natural-Use Operating System and I admit I am kind of upset they used our data to do so when we were struggling trying to make our own operating system," Murrue mentioned with a glare at the nearby wall before sighing and looking down at the data disk now laying on her disk.

"Well apparently it is not fully complete ma'am and is basically for these mobile suits the GAT-00D Long Dagger were introduced, to basically gather further data so they can complete the OS later on," Mu mentioned nodding to the data disk before Murrue looked up at the man with a nod before blinking as she thought of something.

"Then can we repair that mobile suit for your use then Lieutenant?" she asked vocalizing her thought and was disappointed to see the faces of the two men standing in front of her desk.

"We could Captain but it would take all of the spare parts we have currently have from the bits we recovered from Morgenroete before the Colony Collapse and the Flight Pod itself. Instead the Lieutenant has a plan for some of those parts," the Chief replied making the Captain sigh at this before nodding and turning her attention to the Lieutenant who was once again leaning against the nearby wall.

"Well Captain we take the torso section of the trashed mobile suit and make a simulator for our use in training myself and some others in piloting mobile suits. It would be able to link to both my Zero, and the Strike therefore we can do a bit of squad training. As for the Strike I already had the Kid install a copy of this OS onto the Strike just in case we need have myself or another Natural piloting it later on. He also mentioned he believes he can fully finish it streamlining it and maybe even making it better than the Alliance's resulting OS," the man explained making the two other officers blink at this before the Captain frowned at the mentioning of training others.

"Who else would undergo this Training Lieutenant for beside yourself and maybe Chief Petty Officer Neumann?" she asked the man who only shook his head with a sad smile on his face.

"That Tolle kid was interested, so is a few of the other kids including that girl Flay and boy Shinn we picked up from the damaged pod. All of them want to be trained to help defend their friends onboard the ship," the man replied making the Captain lean back in shock before sighing in sadness at this knowing that even more kids would be introduced to the world of war.

"Speaking of that ma'am I have received a series of requests from the other kids, as the lieutenant calls them, along with a few of the other refugees. They want to help somehow and we are kind of shorthanded," Ensign Badgiruel spoke up making the Captain even more shocked before shaking her head knowing that she was quite correct in that they were in fact pretty shorthanded with only enough crew to man the bridge and the hangar for one shift. Not to mention not having anyone in engineering, medical, or damage control. So far it was only thanks to the automatic system of the ship that allowed them to be able to control the ship.

"Alright Ensign how many have volunteered and what are their skills?" she asked the other woman who brought out a small note pad and looked it over for a moment before nodding.

"Well first Sai Argyle is quite good with ECM systems for some reason or another, therefore I think he would be good to help in the CIC. Kuzzey Buskirk had served onboard his uncle's space transport and has some experience in communication from that therefore he should be good to replace Petty Officer Chandra as Chief Communication Officer. Miriallia Haw also has some experience in communications not to mention she has the personality for the mobile suit operations officer needs therefore she would be good as the Mobile Suit Operator in CIC. Then we have some of the refugees, a Doctor Masaharu Hasan and a Nurse Fei Ling have volunteered to run the ship's med-bay. An Ichiro Tamura and his sons have volunteered to run the ship's galley which is good for right now we can't really spare anyone to do. A young woman Mirai Yashima has volunteered to help Chief Petty Officer Neumann on the ship's helm due to her experience in helming an Earth-to-Orbit shuttles. Then we have a few others who have training in some way, either on transports like Mister Buskirk or in other skills we might need. I shall look over them later to see where we can place them in the roster," the Ensign mentioned with a nod of her head making Murrue blink at this before nodding pleased that some have step forward to volunteer. Not to mention she remembered Doctor Hasan for he had been the man who had looked over her gunshot wound earlier after they brought in some people from the Morgenroete Facility.

"Very well then Natarle I shall trust you to do that. Now with all that out of the way does anyone have any thoughts where we can lay low after all this?" she asked having turned away from the other women who had nodded and made a quick note in her note pad before turning her own attention to the coming discussion. Already the monitor on the wall of the office had been turned on and showed a local map for the Lagrange Three Area.

"Well there is the Green Noah Colony here," the Chief mentioned with a frown tapping the indicator for the Green Noah Colony, another Neutral Colony though unlike Heliopolis did not have any Earth-side nation supporting them. Instead it had been the start of a new Colony Cluster for the UN's Space Colonization Plan when the plan shifted towards the PLANT colonies it was left pretty much to itself.

"No it is closer to Artemis then Heliopolis, and we know from the data we took from that _Drake _that the rest of the Eighth Fleet is based there along with the original Eurasian Taskgroup from the Sixth Fleet that had been assigned there. Therefore it is not really a good idea for if we tried to get asylum there and Artemis found out about it. Then we may see another collapsing colony," Lieutenant La Flagga mentioned tapping another of the glowing indicators on the map making the others in the office frown and nod in agreement with the man.

"Then what else do we have then?" Captain Ramius asked looking over the map herself and seeing pretty much nothing out here in Lagrange Three. Ensign Badgiruel frowned as she leaned over the desk and looked over the map herself. Besides the major colony ports of Heliopolis, Green Noa, and the military port of Artemis there wasn't anything else at Lagrange Three. There were several smaller stations and ports but these were mostly owned by private or corporate interests therefore were not the best places to lay low for a rouge ship like theirs. She still frowned before tapping one the icon of one of these smaller stations.

"There is Snail Station here but it is a Junk Guild Outpost therefore I don't think they will be willing to take us in. Not to mention again it is pretty close to Artemis therefore it is not really a good idea," she said after a moment of thought mentioning Snail Station which is a twin to Barnacle Station at Lagrange Two. It was reasonable for the various Junk Guild operations at Lagrange Three along with anything past the Earth Sphere itself. Suddenly Lieutenant La Flagga blinked before stepping over to the monitor himself and with a few taps of his fingers quickly zoomed the map out from the Lagrange Three area before tapping a finger on an icon representing the Debris Belt which covered much of the center orbital ring around the planet. It was a hazard to navigation therefore marked on a map like this.

"Hephaestus Station should be somewhere in this area of the Debris Belt and they should take us in no problems," he said looking over at the others making them blink almost as one at his statement.

"Hephaestus Station?" the Captain asked with a raised eyebrow before looking over at the other two who was just as confused as she is.

"Yes it is the primary facility of Madorna Workshop and is where I was raised after my parent's death. It is a huge station that should take in not only us but the refugees no problems. Not to mention the Old Man Maxton did tell me if I ever left the Alliance that they wouldn't have a problem taking me in once more. I don't think he meant bringing a whole battleship like the _Archangel _with me though," the man mentioned with a bark of laughter at the end making the others nod while the Captain sighed before nodding as well.

"Alright Lieutenant then after we finish up our salvage operation we shall head for the Debris Belt and this Hephaestus Station. So Lieutenant please head up to the bridge to let Chief Neumann known and to take command for a bit. Ensign I need to go over some stuff with you therefore I want you stay behind. Then I shall head up to relief you Lieutenant," she ordered looking over at the other three making them all nod with Lieutenant La Flagga leaving the office quickly heading towards the ship's bridge. However before the Chief could leave the Captain raised a hand to stop the older man from leaving the office.

"I did not ask earlier Mister Murdoch but I take you had not been a very big fan of the Alliance before all of this?" she asked the man softly making the man sigh before crossing his arms.

"Yes for I was one of the handful of people who had been saved by the _Mercy _and managed to survive its destruction therefore I am not a big fan of the Earth Alliance thanks to that ma'am. I sometimes still have nightmares about it," he replied just as softly making the Captain leaned back in shock at this before sighing at this knowing that knowing all about the so-called _Mercy _Incident where an Earth Alliance ship had fired on and destroyed the United Earth Sphere Red Cross run Hospital Ship _Mercy _which had been taking on survivors from both Earth Alliance and ZAFT Ships during the end of the Battle of Nova. It had along with a few other notable incidents made many in the Earth Sphere distrust the Earth Alliance, mostly the Atlantic Federation and to a lesser extent the Eurasian Federation.

"You are not the only one who has nightmares about the _Mercy _Chief," Natarle whispered as she joined them with a frown. This caused both the Captain and the Chief Petty Officer to look over at her in surprise.

"Oh? I didn't know you were there ma'am," the Chief replied making the woman sigh before turning to look at the Captain.

"Have you wondered Ma'am why I am still an Ensign even after the two of us had served on the same ship soon after graduating about the same time from the Academy? Granted you got that one rank promotion to Lieutenant J.G because you are actually a reserve officer but I should at least be a Lieutenant JG myself but here I am still an Ensign," she replied with a shake of her head making the other two look at each other before turning to look at her.

"I had wondered but I thought it because something happening to keep you there," Murrue mentioned with a frown looking over the other woman remembering when she had served with her onboard the _Drake _Class Missile Frigate _Law _in Fourth Fleet right before the war. Then they had served together briefly onboard the _Nelson _Class Cruiser _Montgomery_, Captain Koopland's previous command, during the early months of the war.

"Yes that is true ma'am for I was the junior tactical officer onboard the _Nelson _Class Cruiser _Paris _which had retreated from the final skirmishing around Nova due to damage and we had lost several members of the crew including the senior tactical officer leaving me in control of the ship's remaining weapons. We stumbled onto the _Mercy _taking on survivors from both Alliance and ZAFT ships. At first everything was quite calm with the Captain of the _Paris _trying to have the _Mercy _take on our own injured, however it was then he noticed Mistrals from the _Mercy _bringing in several life pods from a ZAFT ship. That was when everything went to hell and the Captain ordered me to fire on the _Mercy _which he believed to be a ZAFT Support Ship and not a neutral civilian ship like they claimed. I followed that order from my commanding officer over the protests from a few other members of the bridge crew and ordered my remaining weapon crews to fire on the _Mercy_. One Mark VII beam cannon, two Mark V light beam cannons, and the ship's VLS Missile Launcher all opened fire on the ship destroying it in the matter of seconds," the woman mentioned with a sorrow-filled face making the other two go white in shock at this. The Chief had been shocked since the start of her story when she mentioned the name of her ship, while the Captain had only been confused but gotten a sense of doom when she mentioned the _Mercy_. Now the two where white-faced in shock for Natarle had admitted to killing the six hundred man crew of the _Mercy_, including around two hundred or so civilian doctors, medics, and nurses, along with a further two hundred or so survivors for both ZAFT and the Alliance ships.

"It was only after I gave the order that I realized what I had done, not to mention the ECM Officer yelling in my face about it. That was the last time I ever blindly followed orders from a commanding officer. Afterwards I and the other officers of the _Paris _were taken into custody by Alliance Security were after a few days of being detained we were given the verdict by the special investigation panel were the Captain got docked three months' pay and two weeks in the brig I was given a slap on the wrist along with an extension on my next promotion board. A few weeks later I was approached by Captain Cassius my old Academy mentor who wanted me to be on his crew for the _Archangel _which I accepted for it would get me away from everything in the Earth Alliance," she bitterly continued with a deep sigh before looking over at the Chief to see him collapsed against the wall of the office staring at her with a shocked face before he blinked slightly before sighing and rubbed his face.

"Ma'am I really want to hate you but I cannot for I see how much that single choice has haunted you. That said your old commander is fair game for my hate along with those High Command and Security Pussies who supposedly investigate the incident. Also if you want to talk about it along with getting drunk afterwards I am fair game," the Chief mentioned after a few moments of internal thought making Natarle only smile weakly in agreement. Captain Ramius watched this with a relieved sigh before shaking off her shock.

"With that Captain I shall see where we are with the salvage operations. With your permission Ma'am," the man mentioned turning to salute Murrue who only softly smiled at this before nodding her head.

"Permission is given Chief, and also get that simulator up and running as soon as possible," she replied with her own salute watching as the man nodded before leaving the office behind heading for the hangar. Murrue then turned her attention to Natarle who had recovered from those memories.

"I like to extend the same invitation to you, without the drunk part of course, if you need it Natarle," Murrue mentioned with a soft smile on her face making the other woman smile back before straightening up and just like that Ensign Natarle Badgiruel was back making Murrue nod with a small smile on her lips.

"Alright then Ensign you have any thoughts on where we can use those volunteers?" she asked making the other woman nod before bringing out the small note pad once more and started to mention her thoughts on that question while Murrue leaned back in her seat with another soft smile on her face. For things were starting to look up for ZAFT weren't on their backs and they weren't in the custody of Alliance Security. The next weeks were going to be quite interesting she believed as she nodded as she listened to her XO. Yes quite interesting indeed.

**-o-End-o-**

**Post Chapter Notes**

Well that was interesting wasn't it folks? The question of what in the world is the HS _Mercy _Incident is answered in this chapter. Basically I came up with this incident to make the Earth Alliance Command look like more like monsters this early in the game. Since bar the Cyclops at Endymion the Earth Alliance didn't really do anything that resemble war crimes therefore the Mercy Incident. While my reasoning to have Natarle part of it is remove the pole out of her ass sort of speak for she didn't really do anything about the Alliance's corruption till only minutes before her death. She followed along the Earth Alliance line no matter what happened, therefore I needed a way to make her joining the _Archangel _in leaving the service of the Alliance.

I also answered the question on how the Earth Alliance managed to develop their own prototype Natural-Use Mobile Suit Operating System. Basically using the development and testing data taken from the G-Project and their own testing to develop this prototype OS. It is not really complete but is enough for Naturals to pilot, not really well but still enough to make the mobile suit move fully. That is the reason the Alliance introduced the GAT-00D Long Dagger that had been the mobile suits launched from the _Mycale _last chapter. That said I went with this route instead of my usual AI-Driven Operating System because I admit I was kind of tired of using that and decided to do something a bit different.

We also get a mentioning of Madorna Workshop and its Hephaestus Station which to those fans of the Gundam AGE series will get an idea where this is going. However this version of the Workshop is different for it only has been customizing mobile suits for different clients and only recently have been producing their own mobile suit line. Therefore we shall get a better look at them in the next chapter along with the mobile suits they have produced and let me tell you it is not the design you are expecting.

Alright I do believe that is it and I shall see you all in the next chapter. Now for an Omake for you all to enjoy!

-o-Omake-o-

_Bridge  
>AFS Archangel<br>Heliopolis Nearspace  
>Lagrange Three, Earth Sphere<em>

Onboard the _Archangel _the three senior officers, the bridge crew and everyone watching the exterior video feeds piped throughout the ship could only stare in shock and horror at what happened in the last few seconds. An Atlantic Federation warship had fired on innocent civilians and killed them in cold blood. The majority of them knew that the regular Colony Lifeboat like that one destroyed could carry up to eighty people which was only the drop in the bucket compared to other tragedies like the Bloody Valentine Disaster, HS Mercy Incident during the Battle of Nova, and a couple other similar incidents but still that was eighty innocent people dead right in front of their eyes. That didn't included anyone that were killed when the other life boat held by the Strike was sent flying along with the mobile suit.

On the screen the figure of Captain Koopland stared off-camera for a moment, most likely through his own forward viewport before he shook his head with a frown before turning attention back to his pickup. Both Mu La Flagga and Natarle Badgiruel had shook of their shock and was now staring up at the screen with anger clearly displayed on their faces. However both the man started to speak Lieutenant La Flagga shot a look to the woman next to him who only nodded before starting towards the CIC snagging her wayward headset along the way.

"Well that takes care of that. Now Lieutenant Ramius are you going to have your crew stand down or am I going to have to disable your ship and tow it back to Artemis?" the man ordered staring down the camera at the remaining two officers not evening caring about the anger and disgust displayed on the face Lieutenant La Flagga, and the growing anger displayed on the face of Lieutenant Ramius.

"CAPTAIN! You just killed innocent civilians and that is the only thing you can say!" she finally said exploding anger making the Captain reel back in shock before his face went in anger and he leaned back down towards the camera with a snarl.

"Yes Lieutenant for they don't really matter for I did warn that young man, and even then I was trying to target the Strike to disable it not the Lifeboat. This ship and crew are still new therefore there should be no surprise that there is still some bugs that need to be worked out. Besides _Lieutenant _I don't have to answer to you about this," he replied making Murrue only shake her head in shock at this before the man raised a hand to signal something and everyone on the bridge gasped as they saw two of the main guns on the _Mycale _swivel around to target the _Archangel _with one actually pointing up at the bridge of the ship were they currently are standing.

"Now Lieutenant I shall ask again are you going to stand down or am I going to have to get a little rough and disable your ship directly," the man mentioned making the two officers glare up at the screen however before they could do anything Captain Koopland was distracted by a shout from off-screen.

"Captain! They are targeting..."was all the officer managed to say before once again the viewport flashed white as the twin large "Gottfried Mk71" High Energy Beam Cannons that where still armed and out of their protective coverings, fired onto the smaller Earth Alliance Ship. The four large beams of high energy particles quickly flashed towards the _Mycale _which speared through the hull of the smaller ship not even caring for the anti-beam coating on the ship's armor, which had become commonplace on many ships, and out of the other side of the ship. One of the beams had pierced directly through the ship's bridge immolating Captain Koopland and his men before destroying the entire superstructure of the ship in the aftermath. After the beams fired at the ship it paused briefly with the holes from the beams sparking before the ship exploded showering debris onto the flanking frigates but they didn't last for long as the "Valiant" Linear Cannons on the flanks of the _Archangel _barked firing their own deadly payloads at the two smaller ships. While not as powerful as the larger beam cannons they didn't have to be with the small missile frigates which possessed hardly any armor to speak of to protect the ships from the linear cannon slugs. One of the slugs cored through the front of the _Drake _Class Missile Frigate _Davis _utterly destroying it while the other slug only skimmed along one side of its sister ship the _Gates _shredding hull plates and opening the ship to space before burying itself into a large piece of debris behind the ship. This thanks to the last second firing of the ships emergency thrusters but it didn't help the ship at all for it sent the ship into a collision with another piece of debris which slammed it the other side of the ship destroying the bridge with it. The remains of the _Gates _slowly spun as fires and wisps of oxygen bled from the wreck along with the bodies of the crew.

The bridge of the _Archangel _was dead silence in shock at this before Natarle Badgiruel calmly floated up from the CIC and looked at the remains of the _Mycale _Taskforce before shrugging and looked over at the other two officers.

"Opps,"

-o-End-o-

Well this omake is one of the alternative takes on the destruction of the _Mycale _and its escorts. In this version Natarle was reasonable and ordered the ship's weapons to open fire on the other ships. Mainly due to much of the weapon controls fully automated at this time. This came about after I remembered one of my favorite scenes in the Honorverse where Shannon Foraker did something similar against a State Security Superdreadnaught Squadron riding herd on the regular Navy Fleet she was assigned too during the Ninth Book. Her only response to that was Oops which ends this scene as well. I scrapped this scene for while Natarle in this story is not the rule-binding officer she is in the series itself, it would have taken a bit more for her to all out wipe out the other Earth Alliance ships like that. Still an interesting take on the battle.

That said I shall see you all in the next chapter! Till Then…


	4. Phase Three: Training

**Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha. **

**Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Raising the Black Flag**

_An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods_

_Aka "Deathzealot"_

_Or, "Deathzealotzero"_

_With some ideas and support from, _

_Seth M. Klein _

_Aka "Persistent Dreamer"_

**Phase Three: Training **

_The Earth Alliance's GAT-00D Long Dagger Mobile Suit is a limited produced pre-production mobile suit that was built by the G-Project Second Phase at Space Fortress Artemis. It was developed from data taken from the First Phase G-Weapons developed at Heliopolis as well as data taken from the Second Phase Prototype G-Weapon GAT-X101 Rubicon. The Long Dagger is built from the ground up to test out the prototype Natural-Use Operating System developed by the G-Project Second Phase. Therefore while Naturals can pilot the Long Dagger it is with some difficulties due to the prototype nature of the operating system. Even then the Earth Alliance has started to deploy several teams of Long Daggers to the front-lines in an effort to gather combat data to prefect the operating system as well as furthering development of the G-Project…_

- _Taken from __The Mobile Suit: An Historical Overview_

-o-o-o-

_Rouge Ship Archangel  
>Resource Asteroid Cluster<br>Lagrange Three  
>January 27, CE71<em>

In the large hanger of the Rouge Ship _Archangel _the figure of Lieutenant Senior Grade Mu La Flagga floated in zero-gee in front of the taller form of the GAT-X105 Strike G-Weapon looking down at the several other figures that where standing on the floor of the hangar. All of these figures wore similar normal suits to the Lieutenant with only one of them different from the others, a blue and white suit, while the others wore orange and while suits that were the basic flight suit of the Earth Alliance.

"Alright folks all of you have volunteered to become pilots and it's up to me to train you lot in piloting in not only mobile suits but other craft including Mistrals, Mobile Armors, and maybe shuttle launches. Now while I have literal no experience in mobile suit piloting myself I shall also be training myself alongside you lot. The only one along us that actually has some experience in mobile suits is Kira, but even then it's not all that much. That said we do have these pair of nifty mobile suit simulators the mechanics managed to cobble together with spare parts we managed to get our hands on, which including the Strike itself, allow three of us to be training in simulation together at the same time. We can also include my own Zero in these simulations if needed but that maybe rare," the man mentioned nodding to the pair of what looked to be enclosed mobile suit cockpits, basically a ball mounted in a sort of shock frame. Before he nodded to the darkened form of the Lieutenant's own Moebius Zero Mobile Armor that was mounted on its own support frame to the right of the Strike. After a moment the Lieutenant turned back to the pilot trainees that remained standing in front of him.

"However when we are out of the simulators, we shall be studying the Strike's flight manual, along with a mobile suit training manual we managed to find onboard the recovered damaged mobile suit a few days ago. All of you will have copies of both of these manuals to go over, and I want you to study them cover-to-cover. Therefore you can expect to be doing equal time in both the simulators and in the converted storage room that is now our classroom," he said continuing on holding up a small data-pad that sported electronic copies of the mentioned manuals. He ignored the groans from a couple of the trainees before looking over his shoulder at the large mobile suit behind him before sighing and turning back to look down at them.

"As for the simulations themselves there are a couple of canned ones we took from the captured mobile suit's computer, but Kira here shall be working on some new ones both using combat data from my fights in the Moebius Zero and a few made from the ground up. However till then he is done we shall be using these canned simulations," the Lieutenant continued on before looking over to another figure that stood nearby to the group of pilots before grinning sinisterly.

"That said folks if we are not in the simulators training, or in the classroom we shall be training our own bodies. Chief Petty Officer Neumann here has volunteered to train you lot in firearm handling, while I personally will lead you in some physical exercises as well as weight training to maintain your physical fitness," he mentioned not even caring about the various groans from the trainees before turning to nod to yet another figure that was floating over to him from somewhere else in the large hangar.

"We shall also be working with Senior Chief Petty Officer Murdoch and his crews to understand the machines we shall be piloting. For that reason your datapads also sport the Repair and Maintenance Manuals for both the Strike and the Long Dagger. We shall be studying these manuals along with the flight manuals during our classroom sessions, but the majority of that time we will be here in the hanger going over every single part of the Strike and the Zero with the hangar crews," the man said nodding to recently arrived Senior Chief Murdoch who nodded down to the trainees. He once again ignored the groans from said trainees before looking down at his own datapad before looking back down at the trainees.

"Alright I do believe that is everything. Any questions?" he asked the group looking at each of them before blinking when the figure of Kira Yamato, in his unique blue and white flight suit, raised a hand.

"Yes what is it Kira?" the Lieutenant asked looking at him.

"Yes Lieutenant I thought we only had the parts to build one of the simulators?" the young G-Weapon pilot and expert computer programmer mentioned with a frown eying the mentioned simulator pods. This made the Lieutenant blink before exchanging looks with Murdoch before shrugging and turning his attention back to the younger pilot.

"Yes that is true Kira but Murdoch and his boys figured that we didn't really need to use the entire torso section of the Long Dagger for our simulator therefore using these extra parts plus what we had on hand we managed to create a second simulator. Granted we could create a couple other simulators like this but then we wouldn't have the spare parts we would need to keep the Strike and the Zero in operation," the Lieutenant explained to Kira who only nodded before making a quick note on his datapad.

"Okay then I will need to redo some parts of the new training simulations but that shall not be a real problem," Kira replied with a nod of his head making the older pilot blink at this before nodding at the younger man before turning his attention to the other trainees.

"Alright since there is no other questions, I believe it is time to get started. First Kira you shall lead Allster and Koenig in Simulation 1C, the rest of you shall go with Chief Neumann to start your firearm training. Meanwhile I shall be controlling the enemy forces in the simulation. That is all folks," the Lieutenant mentioned before watching the group of trainees break up and go their separate ways. Kira lead the figures of Tolle Koenig and Flay Allster to the simulators along with a couple hanger mechanics. The other trainees start to follow behind the floating figure of Chief Neumann as he led them towards the ship's firearm range. Mu only nodded before moving over to a large console that was connected to both the duel-simulator pods, and the Strike. As he did so he could only hope he train these kids right for he didn't think he would be able to watch them get slaughtered. With a sigh the veteran pilot turned his attention to the console as it started to boot up and looked up to see Kira strapping into the cockpit of the Strike while the other two pilot trainees were being strapped into the simulator pods. He watched as one of the hanger mechanics going over the various instruments with Tolle, while Murdoch himself did the same with the slightly younger Flay Allster who was nodding at the older man's instructions.

Mu only nodded at this for the reason why he had chosen these two for the first simulation was due to them actually having some limited piloting experience. Tolle had done a summer with the Heliopolis Support and Maintenance Division and piloted Mistral Work Pods for several weeks. Flay on the other hand had been doing the same but instead of Mistrals she had piloted one of the Divisions paltry Boral Non-Combat Mobile Suits. Therefore next to Kira she was one of the most experienced mobile suit pilots on board however that didn't really mean anything since Kira only had a few hours in the Strike while the Boral was not only a Non-Combat Machine it also sported a complete different cockpit setup. With another sigh Mu watched as the three cockpit hatches closed before nodding and entering a few commands into his command console starting the training simulation.

-o-o-o-

The next day found the group of the trainee pilots in the converted storage room that was their classroom being lectured by one of the former Morgenroete engineers who had some experience in teaching. The man was going over general maintenance of a mobile suit to the group of pilots. While pilots normally didn't need to know this for that was what mechanics were for. This was the policy of the Earth Alliance after all, but others in the Earth Sphere had a different policy basically teaching their pilots about the maintenance and repair of their machines which allows them to fully know what they were piloting. Not to mention what it could take during different maneuvers while in combat which made them better pilots in the long run. The various pilot trainees had been explained this in an earlier session which made some sense to them thanks to many of them being engineering students of some sort or another. Therefore the trainees where paying attention to the lecture while making notes on their personal datapads as the lecture continued on.

"…with that said it is time to move this to the hanger where Chief Murduch shall finish this session with some hands-on training," the man mentioned ending his lecture making more than one of the trainees look pleased that the somewhat boring lecture was over before making their way back towards the hangar where they would get another lecture from the gruff Senior Chief Petty Officer.

-o-o-o-

In the cockpit of the GAT-X105 Strike the figure of Kira Yamato floated behind the pilot's chair where he lead his friend Tolle Koenig sitting in said chair through the different controls of the mobile suit. Outside the opened cockpit the other pilot trainees floated watching the pair while taking their own notes. Watching them all Lieutenant La Flagga could nod at this before slipping into one of the simulators while Kira lead the pilot trainees through the different mobile suit controls allowing him some time to get some simulation time of his own.

-o-o-o-

In the small firearm range of the _Archangel _several of the pilot trainees where lined up firing on holographic targets at the other side of the range. A few of the group were frowning as they missed their targets while a couple of the others were doing quite well hitting their targets every time. Watching them all was the form of Chief Petty Officer Neumann who was making several notes on a datapad as he eyed the different pilot trainees. He wasn't happy with their performance, especially those falling behind, but they were improving slowly, but surely they will were getting better.

-o-o-o-

Inside one of the simulations the figures of three mobile suits where running across the grassy plains. The Strike leading two Long Daggers through what looked to be a mobile suit-sized obstacle course that was strewn throughout the small glassy plain that made up the simulation. This simulation was mainly to get used to the controls of a mobile suit outside of a combat mindset. Inside the Strike the figure of Lieutenant La Flagga was frowning as he sent the Strike side-stepping around one of the obstacle, a large brick wall, with the two Long Daggers following behind him. He wasn't quite used to the different controls of a mobile suit just yet but he was getting there as he engaged the Strike's thrusters sending the mobile suit flying over a muddy ditch. He spared a glance to the following mobile suits pleased that the two were keeping up with him before turning his attention to the last few obstacles in his way. The kids where getting better every day.

-o-o-o-

In a small deserted town that was the sight of one of the newly designed mobile suit simulations a GAT-00D Long Dagger was sent crashing into one of the buildings as an enemy GINN switched to its MA-M3 heavy sword from its and charging towards the downed mobile suit with its sword raised for an attack. However a green particle beam suddenly cored through the enemy mobile suit destroying it. From behind another building the form of the GAT-X105 Strike appeared with its M701 Beam Rifle raised before holstering the rifle and made its way towards the downed Long Dagger and helped the similar-looking mobile suit up.

"You need to be a bit more careful Tolle for if this was real and not a simulation I would have to explain to Miriallia what happened to you which is the last thing I want to do for she may kill me," the pilot of the Strike, Kira Yamato mentioned with an over the top shudder making the pilot of the Long Dagger, Tolle Koenig, snort with a frown on his face as he brought his mobile suit back onto its feet.

"Har Har…very funny Kira. Miri isn't that bad," Tolle mentioned with a small smile on his face looking over at the monitor showing the face of his best friend which he had become even closer to over the last few days, more so then the last few months since they first met. Kira only raised an eyebrow at Tolle's response before shaking his head and looking around at the various buildings that made up the small town they were fighting in.

"Keep dreaming Tolle. That said I think that was the last of the GINNs," Kira mentioned nodding to the debris from destroyed mobile suit making Tolle nod in agreement before looking around himself at the surrounding buildings before frowning.

"What about that CGUE Kira?" Tolle asked with a frown turning his machine to look towards the direction he had last seen the commander-level mobile suit.

"Flay said she was taking care of it I last heard," Kira mentioned turning the Strike towards the same direction. However Tolle could say anything in reply a large crash sounded as the beat-up form of a ZAFT CGUE crashed through one of the nearby buildings before collapsing in front of the two who had jumped in some shock at the loud crashing. A second Long Dagger then appeared from behind now destroyed building calmly returning one of its anti-armor knifes to its thigh holster as it joined the other two mobile suits.

"Really that was supposed to be a top-of-line ZAFT mobile suit based on the data from the Lieutenant's fights with that bastard Le Creuset," the voice of Flay Allster mentioned with a snort making the two boys look at one another through the communication link before shaking their heads almost as one. The young red-head girl had in the past few days of training had become quite superior over the other pilot trainees with only Kira superior over her. This gave the girl quite a superior attitude over the simulated opponents they fought, and if Kira hadn't be able to win any of their training duels would easily be quite overconfident which would lead to her getting killed in a real fight.

"Alright folks this simulation is now over. Good job," the voice of Lieutenant La Flagga mentioned before the screens of the three trainee pilots went dark as the simulation powered down.

-o-o-o-

_Hangar  
>Rouge Ship Archangel<br>February 6, CE71_

Once again Lieutenant La Flagga was floating in front of the Strike looking over a much smaller group of pilot trainees. Over the past nine days the group had been training hard which saw a few of the trainees drop out of the training program leaving him with six trainees including Kira. It had been tough but these six young men and woman had managed to make it through making him have some pride the group. Not to mention he getting much needed experience in mobile suit piloting which would hopefully allow him to fully pilot a mobile suit on the level of a coordinator. With a shake of his the former mobile armor pilot turned his attention away from his thoughts and looked down at the gathered pilot trainees.

"Alright everyone listen up I have a few announcements to make so pay attention," he ordered quieting the chatting trainees.

"First up we shall be reaching the Debris Belt around tomorrow morning where we shall be finally doing full-on piloting training in the Mistral Pods. Each one of you shall be piloting one of the pods. We shall also be switching out of the Strike to get some further piloting experience in a real mobile suit instead of a simulation. That of course depends on how fast we make it to Hephaestus Station," he mentioned making the pilot trainees start to chat excitedly with one another before a cough from the Lieutenant stopped them once more making the man roll his eyes at them making them all chuckle before turning their attention back to the man.

"That said since we are going to be moving to the next level of training you shall have the rest of the day off. Therefore we shall be doing no training exercises today," he mentioned and was about to continue before the trainees start to cheer lightly along with chattering with one another once more making him sigh and rub his forehead in annoyance. He then patiently wait for a few minutes before the trainees finally started quieted down once more giving him their attention once more.

"What you lot waiting around for get going before I have Murdoch put you to work!" he ordered and wasn't surprised to find the trainees quickly disappearing to the various parts of the ship. That done the Lieutenant chuckled before looking up at the Strike once more with a frown hoping once more that he wouldn't lead these kids to their death. He could only make sure that they have the training they need and hope that they don't meet up with any pilot that were just better than they were. He sighed once more and made his way out of the hanger heading towards the pilot's lounge he had that magazine to finish reading after all. However before he left the hanger he looked back towards the silent figure of the Strike and wondered once again what would be in the future for the Strike he knew would lead the way into a second age of mobile suit design which his trainees would be some of the first pilots. At least he hoped anyways. He once again sighed before turning away and headed towards the pilot's lounge leaving the shadowed form of the Strike behind him.

-o-End-o-

**Post Chapter Notes**

First I like to apologize for being late with this chapter but with the holidays and my decision to write up this chapter and insert it into my already written chapters from NaNoWriMo. I decided to write this chapter for a couple reason, first I was kind of unhappy with focusing on the officers and wanted a look into what is going on with Kira and friends. Secondly since the next chapter jumped to the arrival at the Debris Belt I wanted a transition chapter that leads to the next chapter and the arrival at the Debris Belt. Then there was my decision to focus a bit on the pilot training for Kira and the other volunteer pilot trainees.

That said this chapter is basically a training montage if you will and shows what is going on with Kira and friends during the days heading for the debris belt. At least the friends that volunteered to become pilots anyways. This chapter had originally was going to be an omake before I decided to make it into a full-on chapter when it started to become quite larger than a normal omake.

However even then I am not all that happy about this chapter for I think I could have done better with it but after adjusting it over the last few days I figured I should just give up and let it be posted. That said if any of the readers have any suggestions on improving this chapter I don't mind taking those suggestions to make this chapter better in the long run.

The next chapter you shall be pleased to hear be posted sometime tomorrow since I have taken a bit longer than normal to come up with this chapter therefore I figured I give you two chapters instead of just one as an apology.

That done I shall see in the next chapter. Ja Ne!


	5. Phase Four: Hephaestus

**Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha. **

**Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Raising the Black Flag**

_An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods_

_Aka "Deathzealot"_

_Or, "Deathzealotzero"_

_With some ideas and support from, _

_Seth M. Klein _

_Aka "Persistent Dreamer"_

**Phase Four: Hephaestus **

_The large space station know as Hephaestus Station is the main facility of Madorna Workshop and had been built by the Workshop several years before in conjunction with the Junk Guild. At first it was only a large factory space station but around two or so years after the station was built it was decided to build a civilian block into the station so workers at the station could have their families live close. This would be helpful when the Bloody Valentine War started and refugees started to flee the war. One such haven for refugees is Hephaestus Station which does lead to the station and its crew to start construction of a second civilian block alongside the first one. Today it is one of the major third party port of calls and one of the only ones inside the Debris Belt. _

- Taken from Space Stations and Colonies of the Earth Sphere

-o-o-o-

_Bridge  
>Rouge Ship Archangel<br>Debris Belt, Earth Sphere  
>February 7, CE71 <em>

Over a week and an half later found the now rouge ship _Archangel _slowly entering the dangerous Debris Belt on a heading towards the Hephaestus Station hidden somewhere in the numerous debris fields that made up the Belt. The Debris Belt is a ring of debris that took up much of the central orbit of the planet and even brushed through the Lagrange One area. The very dense debris fields made it very hard for ships as large as the _Archangel _to traverse the Belt, therefore it was normally avoided by any official traffic between the planet and the different locations in space. It was only used by those that need to hide for some reason or another like pirates or others like them that needed to hide away for some reason or another. Even then the debris fields that made the belt still made things tedious to travel with for smaller ships but with some preparation it should be possible.

On the bridge of the ship Captain Murrue Ramius sat in her command chair as she observed her ship slowly making its way through the first debris fields and the GAT-X105 Strike G-Weapon that stood on the forward deck of the ship watching out for any large pieces of debris. A pair of Mistral Pods graced the ship's secondary forward decks which hid the ship's powerful main guns, the Gottfried turrets. Another pair of pods flanked the larger ship keeping an eye out to the sides of the ship for any debris. This was mostly due to the large amount of debris giving large amount of interference preventing from a ship's radar from detecting all the pieces of debris floating around. The Captain nodded pleased that the preparations they had made were working and made a mental note to thank Lieutenant La Flagga for coming up with the idea. Granted the man didn't come up with the idea himself for he mentioned the idea was actually what Junk Guild ships do in similar cases just modified for their purposes.

Speaking of the Lieutenant it wasn't Kira in the Strike currently but the Lieutenant himself. This was mostly due to the pilot training that had been done over the last several days and the Lieutenant wanting to do some time piloting the Strike itself. Which is also why the rest of the pilot trainees were piloting the four Mistrals basically getting used to piloting something in real time. Kira meanwhile was still onboard the ship putting some final touches on the Natural-Use Operating System they had managed to find earlier at Heliopolis.

"Captain more coffee?" a voice asked jolting her out of her thoughts making her turn to the side seeing Shinji Temura, oldest son of the ship's volunteer galley chef and the man reasonable for keeping the coffee flowing for the hardworking crew of the ship. However Shinji was more than just a simple coffee maker but once been a barista at one of the finest Coffee Shops on Heliopolis who made some of the best coffee Murrue had ever tasted. She had heard both Chief Neumann and Ensign Badergeuil joke that the young Barista could make the Coffee for the gods he was that good.

"Yes Shinji thank you," she replied with a smile to the young man handing over her now empty zero-gee thermos for a new full one. Shinji quickly bowed his head to her before moving onto the rest of the bridge crew. The Captain could only shake her head at this since they had a full bridge crew over the bare-bones one they had launched with at Heliopolis. The refugee volunteers easily sliding into their new roles with the young Mirai Yashima at the helm alongside Chief Petty Officer Neumann, Kuzzey Bunkirk at communications allowing Petty Officer Chandra to take over the ECM Station in CIC, Miriallia Haw as the mobile suit operator in CIC which allowed Ensign Badergueil to take the Combat Commander Position, and Sai Argle in the supporting ECCM Station along with Chandra. Then they had the Forward Gunnery Control Center manned which took off some pressure from the CIC and the Automatics, engineering sporting a small crew which made things a bit easier with someone watching over the engines, an enlarged hanger crew which had combined both the original Alliance hanger mechanics with the engineers from Morgenroete. They even had enough personnel to do a limited shift rotation instead of just enough crew for one real shift. Other personal manned other vital locations across the ship allowing the ship to perform far better than ever before. Granted there were still some spots on the ship which sported no dedicated crew but the automatics covered much of those non-crewed vital areas.

The Captain shook her head as she calmly sipped from the warm thermos of coffee in her hands as she watched the pieces of debris calmly flow past the ship while the four Mistral Pods taking care of any of the larger pieces before they could hit the ship. It looked like the pilot trainees were doing a good job in the pods with them constantly moving from one piece of debris to another with little excess movements saving fuel. As she watched she saw one of the flanking pods reach out with its manipulators and snagged a fair sized piece of debris before it could hit the ship.

"Major? You want one sir?" the voice of Shinji asked from behind her attracting her attention towards the hatch leading to the bridge where Shinji stood by a towering figure of a man who stood at attention by the hatch. This man happened to be Major Daguza Mackle commander of a platoon of Orb Self Defense Forces Special Operation troops that had been found in one of the lifeboats. They had been attached to the OSDF unit protecting the colony after the G-Project was started on the colony which provided the OSDF on Heliopolis with a highly skilled infantry unit to support their lightly armed security forces and the light armored company that made up the Heliopolis Defense Unit of the Orb Self Defense Forces. However during the Battle of Heliopolis the Special Operations Platoon were only used by the HDU Commander to help the security and law enforcement personnel to escort innocent civilians to shelters while other portions of the unit fought against ZAFT suffering almost total casualties.

Therefore the _Archangel _now had a unit of highly skilled special operations soldiers on board who have taken upon themselves to serve as the ship's marine compliment. This was quite weird for while Atlantic Federation Warships really never had full-on Marines onboard instead relying on properly trained crewmen who provided the needed security for the ship. Only large ships like carriers and flagships sported dedicated marine compliments. However Orb's policy on Marines, really regular OSDF Troops serving in that role, was quite different and had them providing a guard for the vital areas of the ship as well as a guard for the ship's captain including posting a guard outside the door of the Captain's Quarters. This personally flustered the former senior lieutenant when a pair of Guards that took position outside of her quarters. She like the rest of the former Atlantic Federation crew had only gotten used to having fully armed soldiers onboard.

Currently the bridge sported a single guard, the Major himself, at the main hatch for the bridge while a second man stood at the smaller hatch that lead into the CIC below the bridge. The platoon also had guards at engineering, the main cargo bay where the refugees had been quartered, main armory which now sported the armored hardsuits used by the troops, and the ship's brig.

"No Mister Temura I am fine, but thanks for asking though I am sure my guys will need some of that nice sweet coco your father makes after the game," the Major replied dragging her attention back to the present. Murrue smiled slightly to see the man smiling slightly which changed the man's entire face for he was usually was expressionless and hard but some of the civilians like the kids could make a smile appear on the tough Special Operation trooper's face.

"Speaking of that what's the score Mister Chandra?" the Major asked leaning into the bridge proper with a different more cocky smile on his face. Murrue shook her head for she never thought that a crew of warship like the _Archangel _starting to play sports especially something like Zero-Gee Basketball but it sort of happened. Mainly due to the civilian refugees needed some sort of entertainment to keep them occupied therefore someone mentioned zero-gee Basketball and before long the ship's crew had organized a few teams to play each other in one of the secondary cargo bays. This along with a whole middle school team that had been along the refugees. As far she knew the bridge crew sported a team with Chief Petty Officer Neumann leading a few others from the bridge crew, the pilots and pilot trainees sported a team, the engineering crew, the hangar crew, and the Orb troops.

"Fifteen to Three, Saint Gloria," Chandra mentioned a few moments later with a smug look on his face making the face of the tough trooper to fall in shock at this making the rest of the bridge crew to break out in laughter.

"It's that Mayu girl she has a great arm," Chief Neumann mentioned from his place at the helm making the rest of the bridge crew's team nod in agreement.

"My guys must be rusty it has been awhile since we played zero-gee ball," the Major managed to say after a few moments of shock. Another series of laughs spread across the bridge at his declaration while Chandra only shook his head.

"According to Chief Murdock who is currently watching the game Lieutenant Haagensen kind of got swindled by the girls teary eyed facades, for he had the team take it easy on them and ended up getting their butts kicked when the girls started to really play much to shock of the Orb's Guardians," Chandra reported with a small smile on his face making the older man's jaw drop in shock at this while chuckles emerged from a few members of the bridge crew. The Major cursed silently under his breath before huffing and retaking his post outside of the hatch now with large scowl on his face. However before anyone could say anything else the sensor station started to beep in an warning tone making the operator Petty Officer Jackie Tonomura looking down at this station in surprise before looking back up at the confused faces looking at him.

"Ma'am! Detecting three small heat sources rapidly approaching the ship! There're Mobile Suits!" the man reported making Murrue curse before turning to address Ensign Badgiruel down in the CIC when a strange noise attracted her attention to the forward viewport and seeing that the Strike was no longer standing on the forward deck but had boosted backwards and now was floating alongside the bridge with its hand on the side of the bridge.

"Skintalk communication link established with the Strike Captain," the voice of Kuzzey Buskirk reported making Murrue blink at this before remembering that the _Archangel _had been the only ship in the Atlantic Federation to be equipped with the capability for Skintalk communication which had been first developed by ZAFT to give their mobile suits and ships the capability to talk to one another in a battle area with heavy N-Jammer Interference blocking normal communication. Granted a Laser Communication System could be used but that could be intercepted by a unit in the path of the Laser where with Skintalk is impossible to intercept due to the direct link provided by Skin-to-skin link provided by Skintalk.

"No worries folks I think this is a welcoming committee from Hephaestus Station," the voice of Lieutenant La Flagga drawled over the speakers making Murrue turn her head to stare at the floating Strike with a frown.

"You think Lieutenant?" she asked with a worried tone in her voice which saw the man sigh in response.

"Yes ma'am I believe it is a squad from Hephaestus Station Security but we can't be totally sure till we get a better look at them for it still could be pirates but I highly doubt it," the Lieutenant replied with a deep frown in his voice.

"Speaking of that Ma'am I managed to get a solid identification on the contacts. The first is some sort of a GINN variant while the trailing contacts appear to be some form of the MWS-001 Boral Non-Combat Mobile Suit," Tonomura reported a moment later drawing Murrue's attention to the man with a frown however before she could say anything a sigh of relief could be heard over the speakers from the Strike.

"Good. That mix can only be a team from Hephaestus Station Security. That GINN Variant either has to be a GINN Marauder, which a series of popular custom variants introduced by Hephaestus, or another of their customized variants of the GINN, while those Borals have to be Boral Defenders, a variant developed by Hephaestus for defensive combat. That said let's wait till they contact us till we do anything," the Lieutenant replied over the skintalk link making the Captain nod in understanding at the Lieutenant's comment. She turned to look down at Ensign Badgiruel who only nodded at her look and started snapping out orders before the Captain could say anything making her blink before chuckling lightly.

"Mind Reader," she mentioned to the other woman with a small smile making Natarle only grin in reply before turning her attention to her own screens. Murrue did as well turning her attention to the veiwport watching as the Strike let go of the bridge which disconnected the Skintalk link and took position in front of the ship. The four Mistral Pods had gathered together behind the Strike while the ship's close in weapons the "Igellstungs" opened up and got ready. Before long the three mobile suits appeared through the dense debris field ahead of the ship and just like Tonomura mentioned earlier the lead machine was a GINN Variant while the other two mobile suits were quite different from they were expecting.

"It looks like they gave a Boral an armored vest and some sort of large funny-looking shoes along with a large gun," Chief Neumann mentioned with a snort of laughter for the other two mobile suits were indeed different from the basic Boral Non-Combat Mobile Suit looking exactly how he described it much to the amusement of Murrue and the others on the bridge. Suddenly Kuzzey looked up from his station and looked down at the Captain.

"I am getting a communication from the lead mobile suit ma'am should I put it up on the screen?" he asked Murrue who only nodded in answer and turned her attention to the large screen mounted above the viewport. The screen soon flashed a bit before it snapped on to show the helmeted face of the mobile suit's pilot.

"Approaching Unknown Ship this is the Hephaestus Station Security Force. You are now in territory claimed by Hephaestus Station. Therefore you are to identify yourself immediately or you will be fired upon," the man ordered with a frown which made Murrue nod at the standard challenge however before she could say anything at all to the man the screen beeped and once more a smaller window popped up in the corner of the screen showing the helmeted face of Lieutenant La Flagga. Unlike the other man who sported the normal full-face helmet visor the Lieutenant wore his normal helmet which only sported a thin visor over his eyes therefore they couldn't really see his face but by the twinkle in his eyes told everyone who knew him that other man was not only a friend but close to the Moebius Zero Pilot.

"No need to worry Old Man we are all friends here. That said Captain Ramius I like to introduce you to Flit Asuna, the Commander of the Mobile Suit Wing of Hephaestus Station Security. Flit I like to introduce you to Captain Murrue Ramius, Commander of the former Atlantic Federation Ship _Archangel_. With that I believe the introductions are out of the way and I shall get my people back onboard the ship," he mentioned much to the shock of the man leading the approaching mobile suit team. The smaller communication window then closed and outside the Strike could be seen rounding up the four Mistral Pods and into the now opening portside catapult. Murrue could only blink at this before shaking her head and turning her attention to this Flit character to see him shaking head with a frown on his face before sighing and turning his own her attention to her.

"Alright Captain Ramius like that damn Kid mentioned I am Flit Asuna and I guess you are here to request asylum with Hephaestus Station?" the man asked with a frown eying her through the communication link.

"Correct Commander Asuna we are requesting that you take us in for we have nowhere us to go really since we cannot go back to the Alliance after what happened. Not mentioned we are currently carrying a few hundred refugees from Heliopolis," Murrue replied with a nod her head making the man sigh and frown at her.

"Well Chief Madorna wouldn't mind taking in the Kid back in but the last thing he thought was he would bring back a top-of-the-line warship and its crew with him. Therefore I can let you dock, since you do have refugees onboard after all, but it would be up to the Chief to officially give you asylum after meeting with you and your officers," the man mentioned after a moment of thought making Murrue nod in understanding for it is what she had been expecting.

"Understood Commander that would be just fine," she replied with a small smile on her face making the man nod in return. He briefly looked off-screen for a moment before nodding and looking back at her with a thoughtful look on his face.

"That said I shall bring my team onboard your ship so we can get some of the stuff out of the way before we get to the station," he mentioned after a moment or two of thought which made Murrue blink in surprise before nodding and looking down at Ensign Baderguil who only nodded in return before turning to address Miriallia.

"That shall be just fine Commander. I look forward to meet you person and with that said sir I shall hand you over to the ship's Mobile Suit Operator for landing instructions," she replied with a nod over her shoulder at Kuzzey who quickly transferred the Commander over to Miriallia's Station down in CIC. That done she turned and watched as the three mobile suits one by one landing through the starboard catapult. She nodded at this before getting up from her chair to head to the hangar to meet up with Commander Asuna and exchanged nods with Natarle as the woman floated up from CIC to take over the bridge before stepping through the hatch and heading towards the hangar.

-o-o-o-

_Nearspace  
>Hephaestus Station<br>Debris Belt, Earth Sphere_

In a calm, open space of the debris belt a large space station was moored surrounded by large amount of traffic with much of it focused around the large vertical rotating cylinder that was being built onto the top of the station mirroring a similar cylinder that had been already built along the bottom of the station. Other traffic was going between the large docks that took up the front of the station which looked remarkably like the "legs" on the front of the _Archangel _which sported the ship's catapults and the main guns of the ship. This traffic were mainly small transports, and cargo shuttles carrying whatever cargo the station needed to stay in operation.

Holding station above all this traffic was several defensive mobile suits with many of them being the white-painted Boral Defenders while a handful were the newer armored Boral Guardians. A couple even being some sort of custom GINN Variants that were a bit different from any other variant in use by ZAFT. All were in position to protect the station and its environs along with the numerous transports and shuttles coming and going from the station.

It was through all this that the _Archangel _sailed towards the large station with several more white-painted Boral Defenders escorting it making sure none of the transports or shuttles got close to the larger ship. The appearance of the large former Atlantic Federation warship had shocked the station's security forces but with the person of Flit Asuna onboard it was quickly smoothed over and an express course to the one of the station's larger docking bays was plotted.

On the bridge of the white and red painted battleship Captain Ramius stood at the front of said bridge looking over the station with awe. For it was quite larger then she had imagined it for it was around similar size to a small colony. When she first heard about it she imagined as large as some other stations she seen like the Big Ring Station in Artic Orbit, or the Ame-No-Mirashara Space Station where she had to be sent to before the start of the G-Project to get her into Morgenroete properly. While she did admit Ame-No-Mirashara was quite close in size to Hephaestus it was still larger than the former base station for Orb's Orbital Elevator project.

Standing at the Captain's side is the figure of Commander Flit Asuna who looked quite amused at the shocked expressions on everyone's faces. He always liked seeing people's first reactions to his home for it was always was amusing to him. He looked around the bridge with a small smile on his face seeing all the other members of the ship's bridge crew shocked and awed at the sight of the Station. While Colonies like the PLANTs and Heliopolis were larger then Hephaestus but you expected colonies like that to be larger than anything else human-built in space.

"Commander how big is it? And what are those cylinders?" Murrue asked after a few moments of recovering from her shock and awe. The Commander chuckled at this before looking over the station eying the uncompleted top cylinder before turning his attention back to the Captain.

"The main body of the station from the tip of the docking arms to the rear factory section of the station is around three kilometers give or take. The twin cylinders are custom-built civilian sectors of the station since we are one of the few refugee havens in the Earth Sphere we have started construction on a second cylinder on top of the station due to the overcrowding in the lower cylinder. Each cylinder is capable of supporting around ten to twelve thousand people giving the station twenty to twenty-four thousand population when the cylinder is finished," the man reported with a nod of his head to the station.

"How in the world did you guys manage to build it?" the Captain asked after a few more moments watching as the station become ever closer as the ship got closer to the station.

"Oh! That is a story better told by the Chief ma'am for he loves telling it to anyone who asks, but from I understand it took hard work and some help from the Junk Guild to build it," the man replied with a shake of his head and a smile which made Murrue only nod in understanding at this before turning and watching as the _Archangel _moved past the large docking arms and towards a now opening hatch on top of the base of the arms.

"Alright here we go Captain," the man mentioned nodding to the opening hatch before turning his attention to the helm station while Murrue continued to watch as the hatch finished opening showing a lighted ramp leading further into the large station. So similar to those she had seen at some of the Earth Alliance controlled Moon Bases. With careful precision the she watched as the ship lowered itself towards the ramp before slowly heading down the ramp and into a large docking bay that sported nine dedicated ship docks, five of which were already taken. One of the empty docks that was in front of two of the occupied docks. She continued to watch as her ship lined up with the dock and with a deft touch the ship started to lower itself into the dock. She looked over at the helm and watched as her two helm officers very carefully eased the large ship into the dock.

A few moments later a loud thud was heard as the ship was grabbed by the docking clamps and with a loud whine the dock's scaffolding started to fold towards the _Archangel_. This was followed by a few smaller thumps as the dock's scaffolding locked onto the ship. Then finally the helm officers started to power down the ship's engines which deadened the low thrum that was a constant sound with the engines online. With that done they were officially docked with the station and officially no longer a ship but a docked ship. Already cheers could be heard throughout the ship while a few of the members of the bridge crew only sighed in relief while the two helms officer leaned against their seats before talking excitedly with one another.

"Well then Ma'am I like to be the first to officially welcome you to Hephaestus Station," Flit mentioned turning his attention back to her with a smile making Murrue only nod at the man and sighed hoping that the Station will take them in for she couldn't think of anywhere else to go that would be willing to take them in. However for now she could only present her case and hope the man in charge of the station will be willing to take them in. Till then she cannot fully relax for their future was still in doubt. With a final glance at the viewport and the bridge she turned to follow behind Flit as the man headed for the bridge hatch and eventually one of the exterior hatches.

-o-End-o-

**Post Chapter Notes**

Well here is the next chapter and we are introduced to Hephaestus Station which looks like a larger version of Madorna's Workshop Station seen in Gundam AGE. Honestly while I liked the station it seemed like it was smaller than the stated dimensions for the station. For it had the one ship dock between the two legs of the station which seemed to be quite smaller looking than it should be on a two kilometer long station. Then again I am not really the person to say anything about stuff like that but still it seemed to be quite smaller then it was intended to be. Therefore for the purpose of this story the Station is around three kilometers instead and the dock between the arms is no longer a single ship dock but a ramp leading into a larger dock which sports three vertical rows of three ship docks. This is basically a smaller, zero-gee, version of the underground docks seen in the Blue Steel anime. Also the docking arms are also a bit larger allowing small transports to dock in a similar docking bay to those found in the Colonies of AGE, the so-called "harbor" type which are the red "under-arms" seen underneath the regular arms. The smaller hangar bays on the top of the arms is still there and used by the smaller cargo shuttles and launches.

The station also sports the same vertical cylinder on the bottom of the station which for this story is a small colony cylinder that works similar to the cylinders seen in Gundam Unicorn's Palau Asteroid Facility. Also during the story a second cylinder is being built mirroring that of the first one just on top of the station. Speaking of that the panels that are spread out from the top of the station are relocated to the sides of the station. This gives the station the ability to support a small civilian population which is mainly thanks to my future plans for the station in this story.

That said moving on it seems like I have been mainly focusing on the _Archangel _as a whole instead of Kira therefore I do apologize for that but I am doing something similar to my Resolution story where I am focusing on the ship and its crew therefore the officers are POV characters. Kira will still have a large role in the story but he is joined by the likes of Mu and a couple other characters that have yet to be introduced.

Also yes I am foreshadowing that the _Archangel _is getting more mobile suits with them training a few more pilots which include Tolle as canon, along with Flay which I always liked as a mobile suit pilot, and a couple others with one being teased about in this chapter. As for mobile suits they are getting I can say it will not be the Boral (aka Recten) or a variant of said mobile suit. It will be a new mobile suit that isn't canon but based on another mobile suit from G-Reco that which those following the series will have a good idea on what I am going to be using for this new mobile suit.

With that said I believe I should wrap this up and say that I am sorry for the bit at the beginning of the chapter with the Zero-Gee Basketball but this story is my National Novel Writing Month Story which has me going to group write-ins where different games are played. One such game is basically taking plot ideas from a hat and using that idea in your story which gets a writer's brain thinking about the idea therefore more words being written. My plot idea I got was have some of your characters play a sport within the next ten minutes. This of course stumped me for the story is currently set on a space ship that doesn't sport artificially created gravity or anything like that therefore how in the world I was going to have my characters do a sport. I then had a Eureka moment and said what about some sort of new Zero-Gee Based Sport and then Zero-Gee Basketball was introduced. For those interested I must say I do not know how the game is played or anything just basically use your imagination to create it, but if someone comes up with a more through bit on the game let me know for I do plan on it being mentioned later on in the story for I think it is a good idea.

Alright I do believe that is it folks, and get working on the next chapter. Thanks for reading and I shall see you then.


	6. Phase Five: Madorna

**Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha. **

**Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Raising the Black Flag**

_An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED_

_Written by, _

_William R. Woods_

_Aka "Deathzealot"_

_Or, "Deathzealotzero"_

_With some ideas and support from, _

_Seth M. Klein _

_Aka "Persistent Dreamer"_

**Phase Five: Madorna **

_The organization known as Madorna Workshop started as an independent group of engineers who customize both mobile suits and ships for the right price. This allowed independent mercenary pilots to customize their mobile suits far easily then if they did it by themselves. The group has since become a notable producer of their own mobile suit line with the introduction of the MWS-001A Boral Worker Mobile Suit and its variants including the combat-rated MWS-001D Boral Defender and MWS-001G Boral Guardian variants. They also sport their own GINN variant they make out of exported GINNs from the PLANTs, the MWS-1017M GINN Marauder which is different from the custom variants they do at the request of a customer. Overall they are set to become the Third Party Mobile Suit Developer in the coming months with rumors stating they are looking to produce a true original combat-rated mobile suit instead of a variant of another mobile suit..._

_- Taken from __The Third Path: The Neutral and The Third Parties of the Earth Sphere_

-o-o-o-

_Observation Room  
>Main Docking Bay 3<br>Hephaestus Station _

In a large observation room that looked over one of the space stations large docking bays a trio of figures watched as the rouge Atlantic Federation warship _Archangel _docked in the mentioned bay. The trio of figures where quite different with the first being a tall, skinny man with a pair of darkened glasses covering his eyes and long white hair done in a ponytail down his back. He wore a rumbled pair of engineer coveralls that had a coat thrown over the top which sported an emblem on its back. He was staring down at the ship with an impassive face that was partly covered by his glasses and his arms crossed over his chest. The second is a woman who was leaning against the first man and sported long purple hair done in similar style to the man and wore a nice two-piece suit. She was looking down at the ship with a small pleased looking smile, one that a mother had when a son or daughter returned home. The last figure is a short Hispanic looking man who sported a bristling black mustache as he glared down at the ship with black beady eyes and one hand ruffling his short, crazy salt and pepper hair.

"So this is the ship that had been the catalyst leading to the destruction of Heliopolis Colony?" the first man mentioned as the docking clamps locked onto the ship bellow them. He was surprised by the shoulder slap from the woman at his side.

"Be nice Max! It wasn't their fault that Heliopolis was destroyed and everything that has happened since then," the woman mentioned to the man one Maxton Madorna, the overall man in charge of Madorna Workshop and Hephaestus Station itself.

"That is true Pearl," he replied with a sigh to the woman, his own wife Pearl Madorna, who nodded at this before turning her attention back to watching the ship bellow them before the snarl of anger from the second man surprised the two of them.

"Gah! I cannot believe this! Those damn bastards used my G-Class Plans without asking me about using them," the man angrily stated with another angry snarl as he glared down at the ship bellow them. Pearl only sighed at this before making her way over to the man's side.

"Calm down Jose. Yes they did use your plans as a base for this ship but do you blame them for you had been working for the Atlantic Federation at the time after all," she mentioned to the man one Jose Weaver, a notable naval engineer and ship architect who had a large hand in designing many of the current space warships in use by the Earth Alliance. The man only looked over at her for a moment before sighing and nodding his head at her.

"Yes that's true Pearl but that isn't the only thing I am angry about this for look at it," he mentioned pointing down at the now docked ship.

"While they do use the G-Class design as a base they basically perverted the design into something else entirely," he continued on with another angry snarl before calming down once more at the look from Pearl who only sighed before looking over her husband to see him nodding in some agreement with the other man.

"Alright listen to me you two for this could be good for us if we play our cards right, for think about it for the ship did go rouge for some reason or another. They choose to come here for alyssum therefore Jose you can fix this perverted version of your design. Max did you forget that this the ship had been part of the Earth Alliance's G-Project therefore it is bound to have the data needed for you to complete your new mobile suit design," she said to the two men who blinked at her in surprise before looking at one another before starting to smile for she is quite correct.

"That is right I had forgotten the _Archangel _was the ship designed to carry the Earth Alliance's G-Weapons. Thank you my dear," Max replied with a nod of his head towards her before turning back to look at the _Archangel _bellow them with a more thoughtful look on his face.

"Yes Pearl thank you for this maybe the chance to show up this bastards at the Atlantic Federation Advanced Research and Development Department," Jose mentioned with almost giddy look on his face making Pearl shake her head in both amusement and some embarrassment at the man for he was almost a kid sometimes.

"Yes I believe I am going to go to my lab to see what I can do with this," the man mentioned before getting ready to run over to his lab before stopping and looking over at the figure of Max.

"Oh, send me any data on the ship you can get Max?" he asked making the other man only wave his hand in answer before Jose nodded himself before finally rushing off. Pearl only sighed at this before turning her attention to her husband.

"Alright husband of mine let's go down to the meeting room so we can meet with them when Flit finishes his little tour you wanted them to be taken on," she said grabbing his arm making him blink down at her before nodding in agreement.

"Yes let's go then my dear," he replied before letting the woman lead him out of the room and towards one of the large meeting rooms.

-o-o-o-

_Causeway  
>Main Docking Bay Three<br>Hephaestus Station _

With the _Archangel _docked safely with the Station the ship's officers disembarked from the ship with Flit in the lead. The officers where a little surprised that no one was waiting for them on the causeway leading to the main hatch. The small group quickly made their way through the dock section and saw that the other two docks in this section of the docking bay where occupied as well, though not one they recognized, though it did seem somewhat familiar to the former Atlantic Federation officers. Captain Ramius turned to their guide to ask the man what ships those happened to be.

"I'm sorry Captain but I am not at liberty to say currently for until you are officially offered asylum here at the Station you are only guests therefore some information is of course not for you to know. Not to mention it is not our choice for you to know anything about those ships," Flit mentioned with a frown nodding to the two ships making Captain Ramius sigh before nodding in understanding while Ensign Badergueril was still straight faced but she did blink a bit at this and Lieutenant La Flagga only shrugged knowing that they may be told later on.

"However Captain while I was told not to reveal anything about these ships I was told to take you the long route to the meeting room basically showing off some stuff about the station. Please remember some questions may not be answered till you have the chance to meet with the Chief," Flit mentioned when they left the dock section behind and started towards the main factory section of the station. The three officers could only nod in understanding at this before being lead through numerous areas of the station including what looked to be a complete factory line for mobile suits much to their amazement while Mu only looked on with a small smile on his face. Finally Flit lead the three of them into another part of the station making both the Captain and her XO gasp in surprise as they found themselves on a catwalk suspended over a large hangar like room while Lieutenant La Flagga who had seen this before only chuckled before looking over at the hangar. It was quite busy with numerous people rushing around putting final touches on several brand new MWS-001G Boral Guardian mobile suits while a few of the regular MWS-001A Borals where undergoing what seemed to be general maintenance of some sort. However what really attracted their attention were three brown colored mobile suits that took up one corner of the hanger which had the most people surrounding them along with various pieces of equipment attached to them.

"The MWS-002 Combat Mobile Suit Prototypes," Flit answered their unasked question with a deep frown staring down at the three mobile suits. The three officers only stared down at them as well before turning to look at the man.

"I take you have been having problems with them Flit?" Mu asked the other man which caused the man to sigh before turning attention his attention to the younger man and the other two officers.

"Correct Mu for while we have ironed out many of the general bugs out of the design one thing keeps tripping us up," he answered with a shake of his head eying the mobile suits once more.

"Let me guess the Operating System?" Captain Ramius asked with a sigh of her own looking down at the three mobile suit prototypes. Flit blinked at this before looking over at her chuckling a bit.

"Yes and No Captain for we haven't come up with a true Natural Use Operating System we do have access to an AI Driven Operating System which we finally managed to iron out any of the bugs in the design and started to introduce mobile suits with it," he explained waving at the brand new Boral Guardians spread out throughout the hangar.

"However while we did manage to work out the bugs with it there are still a few problems with it which I am sure you are aware of since Mu here had been piloting that mobile suit of yours when we first met up," he said continuing on making the three officers nod in understanding but kept silent on the man assuming that Mu was using an AI-Driven OS instead of a new Natural Operating System. Flit didn't notice the glances between the three officers and was looking down once more at the prototype mobile suits with a deep frown on his face.

"No the real problem we have with these prototypes that we wanted a mobile suit that can be not only piloted by everyone but a superior machine over the basic GINN since we already have the Boral Guardian and GINN Marauders which are on the level of the GINN. We wanted to go further than that with this mobile suit design but are running short currently," Flit said finishing his explanation making the three look at one another again with Lieutenant La Flagga looking between Flit and the others with an inquisitive look on his face. The Captain sighed before nodding to the puppy dog look of Lieutenant La Flagga who grinned at her nod before turning his attention to Flit.

"Well then Flit you guys are in luck for we have everything from the Atlantic Federation's G-Project stored onboard the ship even some stuff from their so-called Second Phase. With all that Data I am sure you can finally finish the design like how you want it," he mentioned with a large grin on his face making the older man blink at him in surprise before smiling in pleasure at this offer before looking down at the prototype mobile suits trying imagine them complete with the data from the G-Project. However Mu wasn't done for he retrieved a small disk from a pocket and waved it in front of Flit's face making the man look over at Mu with a raised eyebrow.

"And that isn't all Old Man. For we also manage to liberate a prototype Natural-Use Operating System from the Atlantic Federation before we went rouge. We then streamlined it and is the same system I was using to pilot the Strike earlier" Mu explained to the now shocked man who eyed the disk in front of his face.

"This will make the Chief very happy to hear this," Flit mentioned with a large smile splitting across his face. Mu only chuckle at this before looking over at the Captain with a victorious expression on his face making the woman only sigh and roll her eyes at the man.

"Alright then Old Man let's not waste any more time and meet with the other Old Man," Mu mentioned turning away from the view of the hanger and nodding towards a distant hatch leading further into the station. Flit only glared over at the younger man before sighing and exchanging a look with the Captain who only shrugged with small smile on her face.

"Yes let's get going before I smack you across the back of the head like you deserve," Flit mentioned with another glare towards the younger man who only smiled sweetly in response making Flit sigh and start moving towards the hatch leading to the rest of the station.

-o-o-o-

_Main Briefing Room  
>Hephaestus Station <em>

In one of the larger briefing rooms a door opened and Flit lead the three officers of the _Archangel _into the room. Already in the room where the forms of Maxton and Pearl Madorna along with a couple other men. One in a nice two-piece business suit and the other in a set of fatigues both of which were glaring over at the three former Atlantic Federation officers. Flit didn't even flinch at the appearance of the two extra persons in the room and quickly walked over to the front of the large briefing room table.

"Chief Madorna I like to introduce you Captain Murrue Ramius, Ensign Natarle Badgiruel, and this young scamp who doesn't really need an introduction," Flit mentioned with a scowl at the end eying the younger pilot who only tried to look innocent but was failing due to the look from Pearl. With the introductions done Flit quickly excused himself and left the room behind not before shooting Mu a victorious smirk at the looks he was getting from his pseudo-parents.

"Hi Uncle Max and Aunt Pearl," Mu said with a sheepish looking expression making the two Madornas to only look at him with raised eyebrows.

"Unbelievable," Max mentioned with a shake of his head eying the younger man who considered to be another son who continued to look a bit sheepish and trying to find a place to hide from the looks from the two people that had practically raised him were giving him.

"Kid you sure wanted to make a splash on your homecoming," Max mentioned with a small smile on his face making Pearl nod in agreement with her husband. Mu only shrugged at the looks before looking over at the amused looks on his companion's faces making him scowl a bit. Max then noticed the looks from the other gentlemen at the table before sighing and leaning forward putting his hands underneath his chin.

"I do apologize Captain Ramius but we haven't seen our so-called second son in a long awhile therefore with that out of the way we should get to the main event," the man mentioned with a nod to Mu who noticing the serious expression on his pseudo-father's face quickly took a seat at the head of the table and sighed for this next hour or so is going to be quite painful.

"I agree Chief Madorna," Captain Ramius replied nodding to the man before eying the other two men at the table wondering who they are but if Max noticed he didn't mention anything instead leaning back in his seat.

"First of all there has been a few different versions of what happened at Heliopolis and I believe we shall see about getting the true story from someone who was actually there," Max mentioned making Murrue nod in agreement.

"Of course I would be happy to brief you on what happened at Heliopolis. We even brought our own records and readings from the start of the ZAFT attack and to when we left Lagrange Three," Murrue explained making Max nod with a smile not even looking at the surprised looks on the still unintroduced men at the table before leaning forward and tapped something in front of his position. A moment later a whine sounded as a screen was lowered behind the three officers and a small data-port popping up from the table in front of them making Murrue nod before turning and nodding to Natarle who retrieved a small data disk holder from a pocket.

"Very well the first bit is from a corrupted file we managed to retrieve from a remaining data drive found in the remains of Heliopolis," she mentioned with a nod towards Natarle who slid in the first data disk into the port. Murrue then for the next thirty minutes brought her audience from the start of the attack with a video showing the approach of the ZAFT ships towards the colony and all the way to the final collapse of the Colony. She then went right into the following incident between the _Mycale_, its taskforce, and the _Archangel_, along with the Strike. The destruction of the Lifepod found everyone at the table cursing in shock before Murrue continued on with the Strike's attack on the _Mycale _and its taskforce.

"After this we started salvaging operations finding no survivors from the Taskforce but finding a heavily damaged Earth Alliance GAT-00D Long Dagger Pre-Production Mobile Suit which we discovered a prototype Natural-Use Operating System in its computer," she mentioned winding up her presentation nodding to Mu who once again retrieved the disk containing the copy of the perfected operating system from his pocket and placed it on the table. This made Max blink in shock eying the disk making Mu smirk.

"During our salvage operation we managed to recover that damaged Lifepod that the Strike had recovered earlier and lost during the attack from the _Mycale_ along with three more damaged pods which contained around four hundred refugees between them. Soon after we finished up our salvaging operation and started to head out of Lagrange Three heading towards here," she said finishing up her presentation. The four members of her audience could only shake their heads in shock at this story before one of the two unknown men angrily started to curse in another langue before the second man, the one in the business suit sighed and leaned back in his chair not even giving his companion a glance.

"D-Equipment! The report we managed to get from ZAFT didn't even mention anything about this," the man mentioned with an angry snarl on his face before sighing again and looking over at Murrue and her officers.

"I do apologize Captain Ramius for not introducing myself earlier for I wasn't sure what to believe what happened at Heliopolis. That said I am George Allster from Orb's Foreign Ministry and this is Lieutenant Colonel Hiroshi Soga of the Orb Space Defense Forces," the man mentioned with a nod to the still cursing man at his side before leaning forward with a smile on his face. Murrue only smiled in return and relaxed a bit. While Mu blinked in surprise for one of his pilot trainees is Flay Allster and briefly wondered if the two are related.

"Then that is good sir for like I mentioned I do have four hundred or so refugees onboard the ship that I believe would like to be returned to the mainland," she mentioned with a nod towards George Allster who only blinked in surprise at this before exchanging a surprised look with Pearl and Max before returning his attention to Murrue.

"Captain you don't know what happened?" he asked with a curious look on his face making Murrue look over at Mu and Natarle in confusion who looked just as confused as she happened to be.

"Know what Mister Allster?" she asked after a moment looking over the table at Max Madorna who sighed and leaned back in his chair rubbing his forehead in some disbelieve while his wife Pearl who had remained silent throughout the earlier presentation only leaned forward with a frown.

"Didn't you pick up any communication traffic during your trip here?" she asked making Murrue once again exchange looks with Mu and Natarle before looking over at the woman with yet another confused look on her face.

"No ma'am I ordered that we do a full Silent Run towards the debris belt, since we were worried about patrols from Artemis managing to intercept us. In fact we were stuck in a small debris cluster on the edge of the Lagrange Three area for two days to avoid such a patrol. The Silent Run also includes a Full EMCOM Procedure where we didn't receive or transmit anything during it," she explained to the woman starting to feel her stomach starting to fall for whatever had happened looked to be not good at all. George Allster sighed at this before exchanging a look with Max and looked over at them with an expression of pity.

"Captain I am sorry to tell you this but on January 30, the Earth Alliance invaded the Orb mainland taking control of the entire country," George mentioned with a sorrow-filled look on his face while the three former Earth Alliance officers could only stare at him in shock for this was the last thing they expected. Things had just gotten serious for the three for it was more than just a single colony destroyed and one of its civilian lifepods destroyed as well.

-o-End-o-

**Post Chapter Notes**

/whistles innocently/

I did say there was another large boulder that was going to be thrown into the story line and it looks like this is it folks. Yes Orb was invaded a lot sooner than canon in this story and I am sure there are going to be a lot of questions about this. No worries I am sure many are going to be answered in the next chapter.

That said we are introduced to Max Madorna and his wife Pearl which are of course based on Mukured Madorna and his own wife Laraparly. Also introduced is one of my main original characters Jose Weaver which is used in several of my stories and unlike in some other stories he is solely a Naval Architect in this story instead of having his fingers in many pies like my Diverging SEED Series. He also is a bit crazy in the head during this due some issues revealed later on. As for the G-Class Plans he mentioned well that is another thing that can be revealed in time.

A small change to the story is that George Allster is not the Vice Foreign Minister of the Atlantic Federation in this story instead sporting a similar position in the Orb Union. This changes Flay's character a bit and her story shall be revealed a bit later as well. The main reason behind this change is that I wanted to make Flay a mobile suit pilot for this story since I love the whole idea of her being a pilot. Therefore I had to change her character around a bit to make this work for her. Not to mention gives us a high-ranked civilian member of the Orb government to use as a sort-of leader for the Heliopolis refugees, at least till Cagalli is introduced later on.

I do believe that is it for these notes and time to get work on the next chapter before I get lynched for I do know you all are eagerly awaiting this chapter. That said see you folks then.


End file.
